A Crisis of Procrastination

So, about 18 mos ago, I started tiling the downstairs of our house...having lived on bare concrete for 4-8 months, I figured it was time. Mom's room was 1/2 done after all, it was time to start another project.

About 800 sq feet into the project I realized...I HATED THE TILE. Hated, as in "would pay someone to tear it up" hated it. So we did, pay someone to tear it up that is. Then, having learned that lesson, we paid someone else to lay down the tile we selected as replacement. This tile covers almost all of the downstairs; the library will, at some point, be re-carpeted, along with the stairs and upstairs hall and the spare/Sean's/den room. And we have no molding, either at floor level or around the doors, because that all came down to repaint everything AND to switch it to something nicer than "builder's bulk purchase" molding. (Please, don't ask about dogs chewing on exposed drywall edges...it may send Sean, well, over the edge. He's getting REALLY good at drywall repair.)

The soft, butter creme color of the walls had to go, between the new lighting fixtures with their energy saving fluorescent bulbs and the new floor color...it was HIDEOUS. So now we have Mesa Tumbleweed (aka chocolate milk brown) walls and a couple of walls that are Japanese Maple - one downstairs and one in the master bedroom. (Actually, I think it might be Plum Raisin, but doesn't Japanese Maple sound prettier?...anyway, it's a deep, dark, burgundy color that I shall call Japanese Maple...except when I have the paint chip in hand and need to match it to something...but I digress.

The Japanese Maple was picked upstairs because it was perfect with the wallpaper border that Sean and I had agreed on for our bedroom on our FIRST trip to look at wallpaper books (what are the odds of that?). So, we have the border ordered (sometime early last year) the painting done (sometime early THIS year) and a couple weekends ago we put up the wall paper border.

But some bimbo can't measure correctly and she was 3 rolls short (that's 15 yards). No problem, right? Go back to the website, order 3 more rolls, don't think about the lot numbers, it won't be THAT obvious...well, no, it won't, because the ding dang pattern has been DISCONTINUED. As in not available. As in..can't get it anymore.

After a couple hours of frantic googling, I *think* I found some in stock. I ordered it and now I'm waiting to hear back. If it's not in stock, I HOPE I can find another pattern from the same company, in the same shades so I don't have to repaint that Japanese Maple wall upstairs.

Of course, if I'd done the painting and wall paper border a year ago when I ordered the stuff I could have ordered more border before it was discontinued...but where's the fun in that?

Oh, did I mention that we didn't care for how the grout color came out? And "staining/sealing grout" is still on my list of things to finish. But I've got the stain! I ordered that last year.

The pitterpatter of little feet...

...won't be heard at Kaos for a while yet, but our first co-bred litter is safely on the ground and healthy. Elvira, one of the "not really mine, but...." girls at Maskarade Siberians presented us with five healthy puppies a few weeks ago. 2 girls, 3 boys (although which was which seemed to be a little bit of a mystery to Tony, who's only been doing this for 25 years or so).

You can wander over there to see the puppies. I'm not sure who Tony & Adele are going to keep and I'm kinda bummed that I'm only getting to watch them grow up in pictures, but what can you do? I mean...who wants to live in Yakima for heaven's sake? The puppies will probably be down her for a visit later this spring, I can't wait! As I told friends, this is the EASY way to breed a litter...find someone else to do all the work.

In other news: Blaze was Reserve Winners Dog on Sunday, March 11th at the Apple Valley Kennel Club. His very first RWD...and hopefully not the first of many . We'd much rather go straight for the points! But we did take a picture so look for that on his web page in a week or so. Our little boy is growing up and I think we're going to be very, very happy with him.

Sean's heading up to the Klamath Falls, Oregon area for Mushing Boot Camp in early May. He's taking Frosty, Ryder, Satinka and Ice and I'm looking forward to lots of good stories and getting back some trained sled dogs! Since MBC mornings start at 5 am or some ridiculous hour, his mom is going along with him...not me!

While he's gone, I'll be taking Blaze to his first United Kennel Club show, if all goes as planned. I've heard lots of good things about UKC shows, including fun, relaxed attitude and well, fun. I can't wait to see how it goes.

We took some of the gang up to Truckee, CA (near the Nevada border in the Sierra Mountains) for a fun weekend of sledding with the Northern California Siberian Husky Club. Little did we know that it was going to be the start of a HUGE snowstorm! While we were making our 1.5 hour drive down the mountain in 10 hours, we had fun reliving Sean's runs with the dogs...a longer run on Saturday and a short run on Sunday. If we'd known we were going to be on the freeway until 10pm or so just getting to Sacramento, we'd probably have stayed longer on Sunday!

Blaze wasn't old enough to run with the team, although he did get a chance to go 100 yards or so with them, so we let him play in the snow and have fun. And he did!

Isn't he the CUTEST?

While we were up playing in the snow that weekend, Ice was with Grandma at the Southern California Malamute Club's weight pull event, where he earned his 3rd leg toward his weight pull title. Little does he know he's going to have to do it all over again for his UKC weight pull title. Somehow, I don't think he's going to mind. How cool does he look?

I think that's it for new news at Kaos. We're doing some yard work this weekend, and then a couple weekends of shows, with some specialties and Mission Circuit coming up. I keep whispering "grow your new coat" in Satinka's ear while she's sleeping....I hope it works! In the meantime, I'm taking extreme measures to keep Frosty OFF of the kitchen counter. I've caught her up there three times in the last three days...bring on the scat mat!