The Great Dog Sitter Debacle of 2009

I want to make this short.

Basically we decided to hire a house sitter to care for our dogs, cats, and frogs (yes we have frogs) and watch the house during a recent vacation. Usually we board the dogs and let the other animals fend for themselves. This time we were going to be gone a little longer than usual and getting a house sitter seemed to be the perfect solution. We hired a sweet college girl. A friend of a friend. A kid that seemed genuinely nice and responsible. We simply asked that she feed the dogs, let them out to potty, feed the other animals and hang out. We told her she was welcome to have a friend over to keep her company.

Note to self: you are NOT a good judge of character.

Ok-long story short. We return home. We call the sitter from the road and tell her we will be home between 5 and 6 pm. We tell her she can leave that afternoon after letting the dogs out. We pull into our driveway and 2 boys run out of the house with trash bags. We find a total of 6 kids in our house. There is the smell of marijuana and dog shit in my house. The trash is full of empty liquor bottles and marijuana ashes. There is dog poop all over my dining room, on the floor, the rug, the Christmas tree skirt, the drapes and on one present.

Oh how I cried. Oh how I scrubbed. One of my dogs hasn't slept in her bed (in our room) since we returned-almost 1 month ago.

So we think we may not go the dog sitter route again.

Canvas Floor Cloth

Floor Cloths were invented in France in the early 1400s, when painted oilcloths were used as decorative wall hangings and table coverings. They were introduced to North America in the 18th century.



In the early days, floor cloths were used to imitate the fine flooring found in fashionable homes. These cloths, often referred to as "crumb cloths" because of their use under dining room tables, were also used in parlors and hallways. They also made the floors warmer in the winter, and were used to cover the dirt floors of early Colonial America. Sails from ships were recycled as floor cloths and painted in bold designs. For several hundred years, these cloths were made and used in both rich and poor homes. It is said that George Washington listed a floor cloth valued at $14.82 in 1779 in a financial disclosure. While in office, Thomas Jefferson had a green painted canvas floor cloth in the dining room in the Whitehouse.

Until the invention of linoleum, these floor cloths were very popular throughout North America. Painted either free hand or using stencils, their washable and wearable finish made them a desirable addition to the home. By the early 1920s floor cloths virtually disappeared until hand-painted items came into style in the 1960s and they once again became popular.

My mom made dozens of floor cloths in the 80's. They were beautiful-but they were created before their time. No one in the 80's wanted anything like them. I remember the basement full of them-overlapping each other all over the floor. Like the general consumer (mom tried selling her rugs but never sold a single one) I didn't appreciate floor cloths back then. But people can change.

I made my first small canvas floor cloth about 14 years ago. It had a Christmas design and it still looks like new.


A few years later I painted a cloth in tribute of my cats. You wont believe what this rug has been through. I can tell you it has been scrubbed with abrasive cleanser, left outside for a month, tossed aside in the garage for years, and it sat under cat food dishes for years. I found it out in the garage to take this photo-it is filthy and I considered cleaning it to demonstrate how nice it could look-but I don't feel like cleaning ANYTHING today.


Here is a small floorcloth I painted to go by the back door-it's only purpose is to collect mud that the dogs track in. As you can see it is doing it's job very well.


I made a large canvas floor cloth two years ago to go under my dining room table. I never liked it. I always wanted to re-do it. So following the great house sitting debacle of 2009 I decided there was no time like the present.

I prepare my canvas using the least difficult method. I hot glue or sew the hem of canvas that I purchase from the fabric store. The I roll on a layer of primer-the same stuff you use to prime wood or bare walls. In this case I started with a cloth that had been previously painted. I scrubbed the old cloth, sanded it, then I added a coat of white primer.


Next I drew the design. In this case I used a diamond pattern with a mariners compass in the middle.


Now scoot everything out of the way so you can bake cookies. Did I mention I was painting on top of the stove...and don't my cookie sheets look cruddy...please don't judge me. I promise they are clean.


I began painting, first black




Next the red


Now the gold


A few coats of Primer


Almost finished


Finally after a few coats of primer the cloth goes under the table.

Snacks

I don't feed my children on a regular basis. Meaning-I don’t make meals at regular times. I do make dinner most nights and we at the table together-but the rest of the time I wait until the children ask for food before I feed them. One of my favorite foods to prepare is a “snack tray.” I take bits of a variety of foods and arrange them in a muffin tin. When the children were younger I used a mini muffin tray. Now larger appetites require larger trays. Preparing the food in this way gets the children to eat a greater variety of foods and it’s also fun.

Dolls

I just adore Waldorf Dolls. I wish I knew more little girls so I would have a reason to make more dolls.

I made 3 dolls as Christmas presents this year for my niece and her cousins. I used recycled cotton knit (aka used t-shirts from the thrift store) and wool stuffing. They are just so precious. My mom made the clothes for these sweet dolls.



These weird looking things are doll heads-resting in a big pile of fluffy wool

This says it all

This pretty much sums up life around here these days. I don't know which town this is from, but in my town, signs similar to these have been in place for the past 3 years. First drought then epic flooding. What's next?

Shopping Bag Heaven

I just purchased three new reusable shopping bags and they are a joy to behold. This purchase was very unlike me....These bags cost more than the 1.99 I am usually willing to spend on...well just about anything. But just look at them. Aren't they so very pretty. I have many shopping bags-well technically just bags. I have a motley collection of old pre-school totes, Trader Joes canvas bags, a few cheapo bags I picked up here and there and a denim one my grandma made years ago. Sadly I am too embarrassed to take them anywhere but Aldi.


These new bags from BlueQ are awesome. They are sturdy, stay open by themselves (a plus at Walmart where they stare at you like you have 3 heads if you come in with a reusable bag) and they hold a lot. Did I mention they are made form 95% post consumer recyclable material. Yeah baby! Buy some-it will do ya good.

Homeschooling

I'll be Homeschooling my son beginning this fall. I am reluctant, terrified, and excited. I recently read this essay, by a homeschoolong mom, that puts my feelings regarding homeschooling into words (with very little effort on my part). So, I am posting it here with full credit given to her. I figure that since all of 2 people read this blog-I am comfortable with my plagiarism.


From Mrs. G., creator of The Women’s Colony http://thewomenscolony.com

Monday night Mrs. G. was watching Law & Order or something educational on PBS when she bumped the remote and accidentally switched the channel to Wife Swap. One of the wives being swapped was a homeschooler who, once again, confirmed most Americans’ misconceptions about those of us who choose to ejukate educate our kids outside of a traditional school setting: that we are humorless, intolerant, overprotective religious extremist manifesto-writing misfits who chain our 22 children to the kitchen table and teach them that, despite advancements in modern astronomy, the earth is indeed flat; how else would we all not fall off of it?


The Wife Swap’s homeschooling mom lives with her first cousin’s husband and two children on a farm in Iowa. They make every effort to run a self sustaining farm not because they choose a life of volunteer simplicity or wish to leave a softer carbon footprint, but because, like so many of us, they are preparing for the Apocalypse. This family, admirably, raises their own livestock and vegetables and subsists solely on a raw food diet. In other words, they eat only raw food, including their MEAT. And Mrs. G. is not talking about sushi, Carpaccio or lightly seared tuna. These people eat chopped up chunks of raw chicken. They gnaw on raw turkey legs. On special occasions, they indulge in what they call “high meat”—chunks of animal flesh that have been rotting and aging in a jar for at least four days. They aren’t worried about e coli or salmonella because, they insist, God wouldn’t put any bacteria on this earth that was harmful to them.


Now, Mrs. G. is tolerant by nature (and regarded by more than a few folks as odd), but this type of homeschooler is the bane of her existence. It makes her life more difficult in the following ways:


1) The Little League moms sit far away from Mrs. G. during baseball games because they don’t want her to hear them talking about boozing it up over the weekend or their child’s science project on evolution. And this is sad for Mrs. G. (a cradle Catholic) because she is a big fan of alcohol and monkeys.

2) Mrs. G’s relatives feel the need to quiz her children on major holidays with scintillating questions like hey, pass the cranberry sauce, and can you tell me how many quarters there are in a dollar?

3) The women at Mrs. G’s book club, which consists primarily of public school teachers, have a few glasses of wine and say stuff like have you ever noticed how homeschooling boys have such an unhealthy attachment to their mothers or I have this homeschooler in my 7th grade class and she reads at a 3rd grade level and wears a denim jumper and bedroom slippers every single day…and then they remember Mrs. G is a homeschooler and change the subject fast.

4) The cashier at Safeway, eying Mrs. G’s children helping her bag groceries during the middle of a school day, asks if it is a school holiday and when they explain they are homeschoolers, she smiles skeptically and says how interesting and then waxes on for two minutes about how high school was the best time of her life.


The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are between 900,000 and 2,000,000 homeschoolers, and the number is growing at a brisk pace. Mrs. G. finds it exhausting to drop all the necessary conversational hints to prevent others from thinking she is a suburban maverick kook who makes her own kefir and eats raw meat. So, readers, here’s the 411 on homeschooling mama Mrs. G:


* Her children are of average intelligence and don’t play any musical instruments. Not even the recorder.

* She is the good kind of feminist…the old school kind who is hung up on that tired old doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights for women…as well as honoring the beauty and, yes, nobility of raising a family.

* Her children watch television, play video games and eat large quantities of processed food.

* When she is not spinning her own wool and milling her own flour…not that there’s anything wrong with that, she enjoys gardening, gin and historical documentaries. And “The Sopranos.”

* She and her husband chose to homeschool for very personal reasons that had nothing to do with religion, politics or any kind of aversion to public school. Until this spring, Mrs. G. taught creative writing part-time in a public school for eight years.

* She doesn’t jump on bandwagons and is turned off by zealots of all stripes. Mrs. G. is absolutely sure about nothing.


* And she prefers her salad raw and her meat cooked.