Oops!

We missed last week, so this post is a twofer. Last week Mike took time off so we remodeled the downstairs. The walls used to be made out of wood paneling which had been painted yellowish tan, but the paint was all peeling off since the people that painted it didn't either buy the right paint or didn't sand the surface at all, so the paint didn't grip at all.

We ripped out all the walls on Monday, put in insulation on Tuesday, put in drywall Wednesday, taped and mudded on Thursday and Friday, painted on Saturday, and touched up the painting and applied the trim on Sunday. It was a big job, but we like the color much more the way it is now, and we also no longer have to worry about the paint all coming off. It is a light blue, by the way.

We bought a wireless fence for the dog, and when we opened it up it had already been opened, and it didn't have a collar. We returned that one and ordered a new one, but the seller accidentally listed it wrong, so it wasn't the one we wanted and we had to cancel the order. Finally we ordered a third one and actually got it. It worked partially, but its collar did not work for more than a minute at a time, so Mike called the company that makes the collars and they agreed to send a new collar that works. Here's hoping that it does actually work.

Rocket has been acclimatizing himself to living at our house . He really loves bread, and currently thinks that if any bread is left unattended it is his. He will take more than he can eat and bury it under blankets so that he can eat it later. He is getting better about walking on a leash and is also becoming more comfortable around everyone in the family.

We got him a crate and we are getting him acclimatized to being in it so that we can eventually put him in it when we go away, though we have not gone away since we got it.

We have also been potty training Boo over the last few weeks, and she now knows when she is about to pee or poop, and she often makes it to the potty in time. She is still not ready to go anywhere without a diaper on, but she is getting better every day.

On Monday Papa Mike volunteered at the food bank and they were left with a bunch of food about to go bad. He brought us a huge amount of bananas, milk, and yogurt, so we made about 12 lbs of paneer, and froze the bananas. We planned on just eating the yogurt because they kids can eat a lot of yogurt. We have eaten about 1/3 of the bananas so far in banana bread and in smoothies. We are really enjoying having so many bananas. We also have been eating a lot of paneer because since we lost our goats we have been missing having paneer all the time.

Boo was unaccountably fussy on Wednesday, which we assumed had something to do with her eating so much yogurt. She woke up a lot during the night, which meant that both parents were grumpy, and wanted lots of cuddles the next day.

On Friday the kids went to Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike's house for a late over. They had tacos and movies, and they had a fun time except for Rea, who came down with a sickness at the party. She had a horrible headache and then she threw up. It seemed like a migraine to us, so we gave her some ibuprofen and a Mountain Dew and told her to sleep it off. She was better in the morning, so we figured we were right.

We made a lot of assumptions about sickness this week that seem to have been unwarranted. Last night Alison and Timmy had headaches, and this morning Boo woke up coughing and sneezing and Sara and Timmy both said they felt sick. So all those things that we blamed on non-contagious problems... seem like they might have been contagious. Oops. Sorry, Plastows! (We played with them several days this week, so we probably passed it to them.) We kept everyone home from church and we hope everyone gets better quickly.

Mike's teaching has started back up again this week, and his master's program is starting this weekend, so he will be much busier soon than he has been in the past few weeks.