puppies, puppies, and the work at hand

8/13 Sat pm:

Two out of 5 of our in-and-out-of-the-nest children* go off to school between now and next Monday... Though they'll miss puppy boot camp, one will be happy that I can't shrink her brand new clothes when she's six hours away... (It's been one of those days...) I may start a puppy diaries blogspot just for them so they don't miss anything... in my spare time. Hah!

Earlier today, I called my 13-years-younger-brother in TX to tell them about the puppies. He said, if we're going to obedience classes (which we are, over and over and over...) we'll be glad we did this two years from now.

After I spent the better part of the day taking puppies out to pee (which they did) and spent the other part of the day cleaning up after puppies peeing (which they also did) I called him and his wife again ( a veteran Schnauzer lady) whining "Please, please! Say it again! Tell me I'll be glad we did this two years from now..." which they did. If Tyler was around we could commiserate . . . (http://poeticsubversion2.blogspot.com/)

Tell me tomorrow that this is somehow relevant to my one track blog. Or maybe it's a neccessary distraction...? The puppy sheets call it "aversion". Never mind. A one track blog doesn't count as bad behaviour . . .Nyah and Ellie are actually very very good puppies . . .

We're supposed to have a "children's ministry" in...how many weeks? Children we have. . . emerging church ministry we have... AND I've gotten two email leads (people to take some questions to) Things are looking up!

8/14 Sun

No puppy accidents from 6:30 am- 12pm . Kids up. Excitement accidents, walks, crate...Church...Home... "Mom, while you were gone the puppies beat up on each other the whole time... They were supposed to eat at 4? I figured that out and fed them about 6:30..." We came home they were in the crate. They came out, obliged me out doors, played a while and went to bed early like we did... That's the distraction...

Back to one of many works at hand. We're trying a new approach with kids at church. The good news is that, talking to the pastors, it looks like a plan. The bad news is that I didn't fill moms in on what we were doing before we tried it on Sunday. The good news is that after service Sun. I had at least three people say, "Gee, I think it's gonna work!!"

Everything that went well, went really well! Everything that didn't go well needed to go wrong because they're important bugs that we need to work out.


8/15 Mon am
Today, tomorrow, and Wed I write, work out more bugs and get some serious work done ... and of course, the puppies...

If you're at Artisan, you'll hear the plan. If not, I'll copy you in ...

*(In-and-out-of-the-nest-kids! Fun expression - from the Institute of Children's Literature e-news)