Meet Paul

This is Paul.

He is registered to one Jessica Kvasnicka. He hails from the East Coast and moved to Bakersfield last Wednesday.

On Friday, he came to board with us.
For 8 days.

He has destroyed a lawn chair and has kept us (and our neighbors, I'm sure) up until the wee hours of the morning with his puppy talk.

But he sure is cute.

And I owe Jessie about 8 days of babysitting as she often, and without complaining, helps out with our children.
This is Paul wearing a diaper. After he peed all over the entryway, I encouraged Jessie to run out and buy some doggie diapers so we could peacefully co-exist indoors.

However, our dog Shane has been quite welcoming and so the two canines have shared three days together, relaxing in the backyard.

Paul is a Bedlington Terrier and as a pedigreed pooch, is supposed to have a regal-sounding moniker.

But Jessie liked "Paul". So we will spend the week welcoming Paul to Bakersfield.

You may or may not believe it, but last night, we were awakened by another surprise. Even with a clean litter box, this cat decided to mark her territory again on my lovely white comforter. It was not bad, not a lot, but I was up for an hour and a half, trying to figure out in my head how I could effectively deal with the situation. We now diligently clean the litter box every other day. At 3:30 a.m., a covert drop-off at the SPCA seems like the best idea.

But then I eventually fell back asleep, washed and bleached my comforter again, and realized that Toulouse is part of our family, for better or for worse, and leaving her at the SPCA would probably mean horrible things for her. So we decided to giver her some outside time each day and possibly each night. We also might put her in the garage at night while it is cold outside. Hopefully, this will help our situation. I realized she just like a preschooler- if my children don't get outside time to exercise and stretch in the morning and the afternoon, they go a little batty. So do I. Toulouse needs the same courtesy, so we will start today.

I have to go put my comforter in the dryer. And start bleaching my sheets.

Merry Christmas.

Bread Alone

When Daddy goes to the grocery store, he comes back with all sorts of fun things, like a whole loaf of soft, yummy artisan bread. But if Mommy turns her back for a minute, the bread goes missing! We found the culprit. Luckily for her, she is too cute to punish.

I looked at these pictures right after I studied John 6 this morning. Man truly cannot live by bread alone. The multitudes initially followed Christ because He fed them. He cared about their physical needs, to be sure, but how much more was He trying to reach their hearts? Physical bread will cause us to hunger again, but the Bread of Life will sustain us for eternity. In John 6:11, Scripture says that Christ had enough bread and fish for everyone to eat all that they wanted. I love the picture of abundant food. I'm thankful that when I ask Him for spiritual bread, He gives me ask much as I could possibly want.

In other news,

If you don't have a Kirby vacuum, you have probably been harassed by their salespeople, who ask you if they can clean your carpet for free and then spend the next three hours guilting you into buying a vacuum. Okay, that only happened to us once. But it took a PB&J sandwich and a glass of milk to finally get that poor sales guy to leave.

Anyway.

It costs $129 to have your vacuum cleaned when you accidentally vacuum up hours-old cat poop that you didn't see under the soil that said cat scooped out of your only houseplant to hide its poop and you thought you were only cleaning up soil but all of the sudden the stench is so bad that you realize for certain what happened and so you get out the bleach and rubbing alcohol to clean the vacuum and start scrubbing before realizing I am pregnant and perhaps just contracted toxoplasmosis but oh well this darn vacuum is getting clean and so you call Kirby and they laugh at you because apparently it is the first time someone has ever vacuumed up cat poop in the history of Kirby and so you ask them how soon they can clean your vacuum and they say right now for $129 and you laugh and ask how you can do it yourself and the man walks you through the process and so you haul your 100 pound vacuum outside and disassemble the entire blame thing and clean every nook and cranny of all this strangely once-liquid-now-dried cat poop and your son is thinking this is so funny but is trying to be a help anyway with the pressure nozzle of the hose and you are both dripping wet while you are mouthing words one ought not mouth while around children and you finally get it cleaned and put back together and you call your husband and explain to him just how glad he should be that you just saved him $129 and from now on when he is kind enough to take out the cat box if he could be just as so kind to bring it back inside within the hour or especially the day for heaven's sake and then you go wash the cat poop out from under your fingernails and the crevices of your wedding ring and get yourself some Reese's pieces for a job well done.

Meet...

Toulouse!

Named after a favorite kitten on The Aristocats, Toulouse came to us yesterday via Jessie, who asked if we wanted a kitten. My brain said, "No", but somehow, what came out of my mouth was, "Yes". Hmmm.