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The last couple of evenings, we've had the puppy out with us for a while after dinner, and the following occurs:

Take the puppy out. Puppy pees.
Back in the house.
Puppy goes to the door, we go out, puppy pees.
Back in the house.
Puppy pees. We yell NO!!, grab puppy, take him out, where he pees more.
Back in the house.
Puppy pees again. Again with the no, run outside, etc.
Back in the house, puppy goes back in the crate, husband (obligatory squee) fumes.

It's really frustrating because this all happens within minutes of each step -- we'll think he's done, and then there's a flood, and then there's a second one. I'm really not sure what to do differently, but obviously something has to change. We can stick him back in the crate after the first time it happens, but I guess I just keep thinking it's so much volume, he has to be done! Meh. Last night, Michael was convinced he was doing it on purpose to get to go out and play, but he seems to have figured out he can get that if he stands at the door and looks cute. I don't think he's being malicious about it, anyway. He definitely has the idea that he doesn't go in the crate, we're just having some trouble expanding that to the rest of the house, apparently. I re-read all of our information about housebreaking today, but no luck finding anything that could really help.

People who have done this before, anybody have words of wisdom here? Are we doing something wrong or is this par for the course?

This morning the boy and I went out to Hollygrove Market to acquire our very own box of fresh produce. I've heard of this kind of thing before, but didn't know that there was anything like that available here in New Orleans. Last week over Twitter I heard about Hollygrove, and was determined to give it a shot. Michael was skeptical, but came along to see what the fuss was about.

I had assumed that when we got there, we would hand someone money and they would hand us a box and that'd be that. Nope! Instead, we were greeted at the door with a, "Have you been here before?" I am pretty sure that it was my overwhelmed and confused expression that gave us away. The woman very nicely explained that we should grab a box and go down the line and take as many of each item as the orange cards at the end of the bins indicated.

We did that, and then rounded the corner to find a bunch of beautiful, individually-marked produce, bags of kettle corn, goat milk soap, jars of local honey, soy candles, and preserves. There was a woman from the Vintage Garden Kitchen with soups, including samples of a fantastic minestrone. A chest freezer which reminded me of the Mennonite farm near Charlottesville had lamb, pork, and ground beef, as well as the promise of fresh bacon sometime in November. A woman pointed out as being in charge explained (apologetically) that they had to buy the whole pig and have it processed in order for there to be bacon, so it was only there seasonally. Next to the freezer was a fridge with the soups, some sauces, insanely awesome looking salsa, and fresh feta, ricotta, and chevre cheeses. Beside the registers, there was a pile of gorgeous fresh bread.

Michael grabbed some kettle corn, and I picked up the chevre, and then we took our booty (arrrrrrr... yes I know what day it is) home.

This is what we ended up with:


Five satsumas, which I am not entirely sure what to do with, but might try using in a salad a la my mother's mandarin dressing.
Three Arkansas Black Apples
One bunch of turnips (I've never made turnips before... or turnip greens!)
Four yellow squash
Two sweet potatoes -- they had these tiiiny little sweet potatoes, smaller than my fist. I've never seen such small sweet potatoes!
Two tomatoes (Ripening in the windowsill)
Two green peppers
One Pattypan Squash (No clue what to do with this one, but it's so cute!)
One Yellow Zucchini
One bag of muscadine grapes (already half-gone)
One bag of okra (will be fried later today or tomorrow, I assure you)
One bag of shelled, fresh frozen lima beans
One container of white button mushrooms

Next time, I am going to bring home some of the awesome bread and a container of the salsa, if it's still there. I'm very excited about experimenting with some of the veggies I've never tried before. All in all, a very productive exploration, and hopefully one which we'll repeat regularly from here out!

As seen over at Mothers in Medicine:

One year and three months into a two-year residency, I give birth to my daughter. I am eligible for one year of maternity leave, and have every intention of staying home with my sweet, big-eyed Saskia for all fifty-two weeks.*

*I am Canadian

Yeah, I'm moving to Canada. Totally.

A dear friend of mine is auctioning an Elizabethan gown, along with all of the underpinnings needed to actually wear the thing as well as the accessories to finish it.



More pictures available here.

Please take a peek if it's something you might be interested in, and pass along to any other friends/communities/mailing lists that you know of which might have interested parties. Thank you!! :)

• 12:37 Wondering if Newfies know how to prepare for a hurricane... #
• 16:07 OH MY SWEET LORD, STOP TALKING!!! I do not need a running commentary of your thoughts on lecture! #
• 20:08 Starting to think I am going to have to get my engagement ring re-sized again. It is weirdly loose and starting to bother me while typing. #
• 21:27 If someone could remind me why the f... heck I am still beating my head against this ginormous wall called medical school, that'd be great. #

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Here we go... *patpats El Nino* You stick around, mister. Let the fish keep all the storms this year!

skreidle posted Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Moon Landing. It's interesting, although I wouldn't go so far as to say I didn't know them. #9 caught my eye, though:

9. The flag was made by Sears, but NASA refused to acknowledge this because they didn’t want "another Tang."

When I went to Houston while doing Air Force stuff a couple years ago, we were told that they had requested three flags from three different manufacturers, then refused to say which one had been actually planted in order to avoid being used as a marketing tool (ie, "another Tang"). This flag is hanging in old mission control and is one of the ones which wasn't used. I imagine someone could have gone back and looked at the tags/records and figured out which one was selected to determine it was Sears, but those details are still important to the story, as far as I'm concerned. I realize the #9 version has probably been shortened to soundbite length for that top ten entry, but the discrepancy still rankles. Imprecise.

We're slowly beating the house into shape, working together for a while every morning. I am signed up for FlyLady again, and am using her missions/zone of the week as a guideline for what I tackle on any given day. The boy is a lot better at the decluttering side of things, and I am better at cleaning, so that's how we roughly divide it. This morning, for example, I cleaned out the silverware drawer and the utensil drawer, rearranging both and sorting out a bunch of redundant items, then cleaned off/rearranged/dusted the top of the fridge, the top of the china cabinet, and the top of one other set of kitchen cabinets. Michael decluttered the shelf in the bedroom which had become a generic dumping ground for random cables, cartons, and other odds and ends, then wiped down the bottom ledge of the shower. It doesn't sound like much, but every day it gets a little better.

( Herein lies a very long ramble about my intentions for tackling some major #organizationfail spots.Collapse )

In any case, this has been a riveting brain-dump about trying to get my life under control before I start intern year, after which point if it wasn't a habit before, it ain't happening. (Or so I'm told.) I don't know that any of it is of any interest to anyone other than me, but I suppose that's why I posted it in my LJ instead of someone else's. I feel better now, in any case!

• 16:40 Crazy tons of rain! It's coming down in sheets. Yay! #

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