Two for TV and TV for Two

My husband paid rent today and on his way to the office, an ad on the community cork board caught his eye:

42" Plasma TV For Sale!

 Price $200

Our current TV is a dinosaur and weighs about as much! It was made in 1990 and was used in my husband's sisters' bedroom for a long time. When we got married they gave it to us, which was very sweet.

It definitely had it's quirks as TV's go: you would have to turn it on multiple times before the screen would be in color, not to mention turn up the sound so you couldn't hear the loud buzzing!

It didn't take much convincing on Jefferson's part before I gave in to the idea of having a nice TV. He even said it could be his birthday present this year and I wasn't about to turn that down!

After we picked it up and got it home and hooked it all up, we put in a movie and all I have to say is "Well hello plasma TV! You gorgeous hunk of 42 inch-ness, you!"

The Kimber Chronicles: Toby and the Toilet Trauma

As mentioned before, the hubby and I have been trying to find our puppy a friend/sibling. In other words, another pet who could be with her all day long, love to play and just keep her happy. We tried a kitten (that didn't work) and were still stumped as to what to do.

Well, yesterday being close to Halloween and all, we decided to have my siblings over to watch the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. My siblings, not having any pets of their own, love our doggie, and Kimber loves them too, especially my brother Stevie. She loves to jump and play (with Stevie especially) and when we take her to my parents house, she rolls around in the grass/mud and just loves to be outside.

So they were all having a good time, especially after I showed up with the pizza (funny story about that, it being a weekend and all, Little Caesers was packed. I should've known to avoid the wait when a guy, walking out right as I was walking in said, "hot and ready my..." yeah, the wait was long.). Kimber, being the puppy that she is, really needed to go potty after a while because she was that excited, so Jefferson took her.

When he came back, he brought a visitor with him. Introducing Toby. Toby was a four year old basset hound who originally belonged to our downstairs neighbor. While Kimber had been doing her business, Jefferson and the neighbor had been talking. He was a workaholic who was never home to spend time with his dog and was willing to give him up for free. If we didn't like him, we were more than welcome to bring him back and he'd try again with someone else.

Knowing we were wanting to find Kimber a buddy, Jefferson jumped at the chance and so, with all my siblings there as witnesses, Jefferson brought him home.

There was only one problem: Toby was terrified of Kimber. I don't know what it is about our puppy, but she's like the awkward kid on the playground who wants so badly to have friends but is so overbearing with love and attention that none of the other kids want to play with her. It's sad, but true.

Also, Toby being four years old and left alone for most of the day had developed some pretty bad habits. (Did I say there was only one problem?) For example, he practically lived on his owner's couch. Our puppy is not allowed on the couch because it's our only good piece of furniture that we actually paid for and weren't given as a wedding present.

Toby's first destination upon coming into the house was to jump up on the couch in his attempt to get as far away from our puppy as possible. That landed his stinkyness in its entirety right in my lap and he's a heavy dog!

Anyway, we decided to make the best of it and that night we put both doggies in the bathroom together. Toby saw the bathtub and beelined for it, seeing it's wall as a safe haven from the hyperactive puppy. Kimber, knowing that the tub meant bathtime, stayed as far away from it as possible.

Last night was one of the longest of our life. Kimber was whining the whole time because Toby wouldn't let her be friends and Toby kept howling (basset hounds are notorious for that, by the way) because she was trying to invade his space.

Flash forward to this morning. Jefferson gets up to use the restroom and hurries back to me, shaking me awake and saying the toilet is leaking.

Wha...? How did that happen?

As we were driving to Walmart to get the right size wrench, this is what we figure happened: Kimber at some point last night had tried to get into the tub to snuggles with Toby (she's a very snuggly puppy) and he, seeing her imminent approach, made an attempt to clamber on top of the toilet tank, knocking it partway over, loosening the bolts and spraying water everywhere.

It was an easy fix, and a box of Krispy Kremes (What? It's on the way to Walmart. Don't judge me.) for breakfast helped to smooth things over.

But, you may be wondering what happened to Toby after all of that? Well, this morning, as we were trying to get dressed for the day, Toby knocked over the pizza boxes from last night and started in on any leftover scraps. I caught him doing it, gave his snout a little smack and told him no. When he did it again, I went in to administer the same punishment and he bared his teeth and growled at me. I'm sorry to say that due to that instance, Toby is no longer with us.

The Kimber Chronicles: Scaredy Cat

Jefferson's sisters have a cat. Actually, they have several cats, but for a while they had one cat that wasn't fixed and was a kitten-making machine. This particular cat's name is Cloudy and that describes her perfectly: a cranky little cloud-storm.

Well, for a while they were trying to breed her, but being the cranky brat that she is, an arranged marriage wasn't doing too much for her. Finally, after much frustration, the girls decided to just let her be an outside cat and voila!

Kittens were the inevitable result of said promiscuity, but because they weren't pure-bred they weren't worth any money and the girls were having a hard time getting rid of the (yes, there was more than one) second litter.So much so in fact that one day they brought the latest batch to my work and tried to pawn them off on unsuspecting customers. (Don't even get me started on that! I just think it's funny that Jefferson and I got in trouble for bringing our house-trained puppy into work after hours but the girls could pawn kittens during business hours...but I won't get too into that can of worms. Trust me, it's not pretty.)

Anyways, our puppy Kimber had been so lonely for the past few months, howling and whimpering whenever we were gone and it was so sad. When the girls saw that they weren't going to get rid of their kittens at my store, they turned on me and started in!

Well, the puppy could use a friend...okay, why not?

So I called the hubster and he fought so hard against the idea, him being allergic to cats and all, but after I promised to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't go in the bedroom, we decided to try it.

Yeah....what were we thinking? (This is where Jefferson would pipe in and say," We? Oh no, that was you!")

Our puppy is big...okay, really big, and the kitten was so little. We keep Kimber barricaded in the kitchen during the day, a) so she won't get into things she's not supposed to, and b) if she has an accident, it's easier to clean up that way. The kitty didn't like that. She clambered over two baby barricades (about four feet tall) and hid under the couch. Kimber loved the kitty, wanting to maul and lick her and play, but being so big, she played rather rough and the kitty wasn't having any of that. either.

To make a long story short, the kitty lasted a day, and even then not 24 hours. Jefferson's dad had told us all sales were final and that if things didn't work out with her, we'd have to deal with it. Lucky for us though, a lady saw the ad online for the kittens and called. By then, they'd gotten rid of all the other ones, but they called us up and asked how things were going. We were only too grateful to wash our hands of all things kitty-cat.

Lesson learned.

The Many Adventures of Genny and Jefferson in: A Penny for Your Thoughts

Ever wondered what to do with all that spare change lying around? I mean, seriously, you go anywhere and pay with cash and unless you have the exact amount, you're gonna wind up with spare change. And it clutters up your wallet, it clutters up your underwear drawers, given enough time even the stoutest of piggy banks cannot contain it. So what do you do with it?

When Jefferson and I were married, we brought quite a considerable dowry in spare change to the table.

One day, after unsucessfully trying to fit a new batch of coins into our already bulging banks, we decided to see exactly how much coinage we had acquired. The count: $33.00. $33.00 had been sitting around taking up space on our shelves.

$33.00 can get you quite a few things: a bike helmet, blue ray movie, 5 dog collars, lots of candy, an ugly sweater, a new bra (not a Victoria Secret one), 3 plain white t-shirts, at least 6 things at Deseret Industries, a cat, a Black Friday deal for a bicycle in the children's section at Walmart, a paint set, an armchair at Ikea, and three hefty bags of potatoes.

What did we decide to buy? Two movie tickets to the dollar theatre, goodies for the show at Dollar Tree, and then a nice dinner out at Olive Garden. Win.

And being the goofs we are, we didn't exchange the coins, but counted them out into baggies, each baggie containing a dollar. The best part? When we gave our waiter the bags of coins. The look on his face was priceless. But even better than that? When he came back with our reciept and asked us if we wanted our change. Double win.

We gave him a pretty nice tip, in cash, for being such a good sport!