Bob's Your Uncle...

I have to say, this past weekend was a whirlwind of excitement. Excitement is the nice term I've decided to use when in fact MENTAL CHAOS is probably a better term. I mean, nothing BAD happened, but mentally, my head just felt like it was having a firework display inside-all the little pops and bangs going off here and there if you know what I mean. And it all comes down to one living creature...the puppy.

""'Get a dog!' they said. 'It will be fun!'" "'Get another dog!' they said. 'They'll be sisters and love each other'" I don't know who THEY are, but my family needs to stop listening to THEY! My mental health is shot! And it wasn't all together there in the first place! I mean, the puppy really isn't any different from any other puppy, but the fact of the matter is, she's a PUPPY and she is a lot of work! It's funny because like most pet owners (and I know you all do this!) I tend to be the "voice" for Kimber, our 18 month old shepherd, and pretend to understand what she's thinking so I say it out loud as if she were talking..."mom, wasn't it great when it was just us?" or "I really enjoyed being an only child mom" OR "I don't want to share my toys with her! Those are my toys and you gave me them and I've built a relationship with them...and she's chewing them..." 😂 I'm pretty sure she's thinking at least half of those thoughts, but she has literally become her mother more than her sister. Since the day she became ours, Kimber has done nothing but shower her with attention. She's cleaned her (and keeps cleaning her 🤢 and now has worms from cleaning her🤦🏻‍♀️, she's wrestled with her, sat on her, yanked that stuffed animal pictured above from her which inevitably flung her across the room, pummeled her doing Indy laps in the back yard, literally she's all but eaten her...and I believe she's just one chomp from doing that. But, there is no one in the house that will tell you that she doesn't love her. She can't walk anywhere without looking back or around for her so giving up on training this pup is out of the question!

And it hasn't been easy! I am with them 100% of the time. Everyone else has to work...unless you're my son who has to sleep and do other "I can't right now I'm busy" things. Before the puppy I HAD a nice routine going, I really did. It's been three weeks and I don't even remember the routine I had! I'm OCD about cleaning and my house smelling so everyday I'm washing blankets and towels, bathing the puppy (not with soap all the time-don't want to dry her skin out), lighting candles or burning tarts, mopping because I still don't trust those "natural" scent killers when cleaning up puppy piddles! And the puppy is hardly in her cage. She sleeps there at night, but if we are home she's out because she SCREAMS if she knows you're home and she can't be a part of your world on an intimate level!!! Honestly this is like having twins...toddler twins. I haven't worn makeup out in what feels like a decade. My hair is clean, but there is no style...I wear hair clips placed randomly all over my head. Even my daughter has come home laughing stating, "One just never knows where those clips can be found on your head! I think I'm going to buy you some clips that look like butterflies so you look like a plant" Like most situations, I constantly tell myself "this, too, shall pass".

Then...being that we had a holiday weekend, our youngest daughter came into town to stay a few days! She's never met the puppy and is an absolute dog lover so guess who played and got them all hyped up? Yes, the house was rocking, the driveway was busting with musical cars, and all three kids, 2 dogs, and a happily married couple were under one roof 🥰

Bill and I took our daughters to one of our favorite restaurants over the weekend. Of course, as soon as I sat down I see this additional menu next to the regular menu. Naturally my family rolled their eyes lol. I looked at it and said, "Oh My God, I'm taking this home" (the menu is on the back) to which the butterfly clip daughter said, "I knew you were going to say that." When our server arrived she immediately asked what we would like to drink and I immediately asked if I could take this home, then I gave her my drink order lol. I decided that I want to add it to my shadow box that I haven't yet started of "All Things Queen Elizabeth II" that I own, including my infamous pen pal letter (as I like to refer to it). So, while we were enjoying appetizers, my youngest daughter found a part of the menu that had a list of British sayings and words that are of course quite common in England, but obviously not here, or at least in Kentucky 😂. For instance, the word 'bollocks'. I always thought it was part of a man's "privates" (I googled it later and was right!), but in England it means, "nonsense" or as an adjective to mean "useless or poor quality". Our server said she has a problem using the F bomb so she has started to use bollocks to keep it cleaner. However, the best phrase came when my daughter said, "Bob's your uncle". So many things came to mind and were said out loud, but no one figured it out. Then she told us it means, "and there you have it". Literally, all night long all we did was laugh and say, "Bob's your uncle". I still can't help but laugh and use it from time to time.

Before you knew it, the weekend was over and my daughter was heading back to Virginia. The house was cleaned up and routines started again. The weather was beautiful, but with all the beauty kept coming the pop up showers. The rain we've had has been unreal. Throw in some thunder and you have a big dog pacing the house like madman! So, out of curiosity, being that I don't currently have anything I can give her to calm her down (haven't tried anything yet, but am going to this weekend) I decided to put her in her cage and spray some lavender water around her. I've read so much about my favorite herb and know that it has calming effects so Bob's your uncle and I thought I'd give it a whirl. That just blended right in, didn't it? Sadly, I don't know if it worked or not because she was in her cage where she likes to be and feels safe so maybe it was a win win!

And speaking of lavender, these stems were cut from one of my potted lavender plants. It's one of my favorite herbs to grow and cut and it's getting to be that time to harvest some stems. Every year I cut the stems that have purple buds just like the ones above. When you see the buds and they look full and haven't opened to flowers, it's the perfect time to cut them and dry them.

See the ones on the left? They were cut last week and the ones on the right I cut yesterday. All I do, since my stems aren't that long, is set them on my kitchen island on a napkin to dry out for a week. This way they get air and are out of direct sunlight. Then I feel the buds to see if they are dry. You'll know because they are brittle and they'll fall right off when touching them. See the little Paris cup? That's a gift from my FRIEND Bets. It's the perfect size for this year's lavender collection, so I put a little coffee filter inside (it's a little planter cup so it had a hole for drainage) and I gently scraped the buds off my dry stems and viola! OH YOU SHOULD SMELL IT! It smells amazing. 😌

I know it didn't look like many stems, but they add up! I find that the lavender, when planted in the ground, have longer stems and the lavender planted in a small pot doesn't get tall long stems. Next year I may grown them in a larger deeper pot just to see how they do. Regardless, the smell is amazing and the buds are perfect. I have two other containers that have buds in them and they STILL smell amazing. I like to use the fresh buds to decorate cakes or add to flavored teas. The older buds, still smelling fresh, can be used in making soaps or sachets or even added when making lavender linen spray. Be sure to check out my recipe tab for an easy to make lavender linen spray!

Bob's your uncle! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. It's going to be graduation central around our little town. School is out and summer is in full swing!

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