Hello from La Petit Puppe’, the daycare for the discerning puppy owner! As you may remember, we have a new puppy. After three weeks in her new home, Tess has done her best to leave her mark on everything inside. Wow. I haven’t had a puppy since Callie was little in 1996. Over the years, [...]

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One day. One whole day’s worth. That’s how much freedom I got to experience with the start of school. Well, technically, it was a day and a half. But that doesn’t matter; what’s important is that I’m an idiot. The details of my descent into dementia aren’t really relevant. Okay, one detail is totally relevant. [...]

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What you are about to read is NOT fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is 100% accurate. This kind of thing really does happen here. Way too often. Abby was upside-down on the couch again. Stomach to the seat, legs against the back, head hanging down toward floor. THUD. Her head made floor [...]

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As you can imagine, this week has felt a little bit full. With Callie Dog’s passing early Tuesday and keeping kids home from school so they could “grieve” (which looked an awful lot like playing and bickering and researching breeds for our NEXT dog), I had to spend Wednesday and today catching up. So I’ll [...]

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JOY MOURNING Sometime during the night, our Callie Dog passed away. She brought us joy for 14 years, and we’ll miss her terribly. The Bible contains no clue into what happens to our pets after they die. But I’d like to believe that they travel on ahead of us to Heaven, to wait patiently until [...]

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HELLO. MY NAME IS SCRUFF! I’m the little dog  in the family! Mommy loves me! And I love Mommy! Dad scares me. One time he made me pee on the floor. How? By telling me NO. In a BIG SCARY voice. SQUIRREL! SNIFF! SNIFF… … HELLO. MY NAME IS SCRUFF! The other day Mommy bought [...]

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Sometimes when too much time passes between my writing sessions, the creativity builds up like magma under an Icelandic volcano with an unpronounceable name. Then a day comes along when the creativity magma blasts a hole in the glacier of housework that I’m supposed to be doing, shooting shards of crazy into the atmosphere over [...]

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Wazzup? Today I was thinking of writing a post sharing what’s up (i.e. wazzup) in Red Clay Land. You know, like how the kids are home from school today so they had a sleepover in the living room last night and now at 2 pm they’re still in there playing with the air mattress electric pump. [...]

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Dear Dieree, Todayy I came THIS close to catching prey. Ruhmember how I used too git tertles evree day? Ah, thowse were the dayz… Crunchee on the outside and chewee inside. Mmmm, tertles. Yeah, yer right. Tertles wuz badd for my teeeth. Annd Mom sed thay made my brethh smell like fish. Shee even sed [...]

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Did you ever have one of those days when you can’t stop yawning? But your jaw aches for some reason and a big yawn makes it feel like it’s dislocating? Then you think about how much yawning hurts, which makes you yawn even more? Have you ever wished your kid would Just. Stop. Talking? And [...]

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