Got the hubby home tonight and the first thing he did was start watering the bushes. Thank goodness. That is a job I find too overwhelming. It is so hot and dry, I am going to have to start regularly watering the flower gardens now. Thanks for the drink Celeegra. I had a long day. Hubby and I took his brother home to Kalamazoo and stayed overnight. Found out there are tons of greenhouses there and some are retail but most are wholesale. Of course, I had to stop. One was having their famous "cart sale" and they have those two shelved carts and you can load all you can get on it for 45.oo. I would have done it if it weren't for the fact we had already bought 8 huge bags of peat moss at Walmart for 2.50 a bag. I saw a lady with 5 flats on the bottom of her cart and a huge selection of gallon plants on the top. I settled for 4 for 10.00 perennials of which a Pow wow echinacea was included. Too excited. I then stopped at another place and they had 1.79 quart size perennials. I bought 3. It's a sickness I tell ya, a sickness. Margo

My daughter got married 3 yrs ago. She had the Wedding Binder. Had notes, receipts, plans, fabric samples, pictures of anything to do with wedding. We shopped in 7 different cities looking for the perfect shade of blue with the look/feel/drape of what she wanted. We finally found it... She was so organized she laid out everything she had purchased, sorted it out, took a digital photos, numbered the tote box, wrote where in the maze of totes it was located, (color coordinated, of course ;) and had those picture pages in her binder. There was every phone number, name of sales clerk,subject, etc. that she had conversations with along the way... Of course the wedding and reception was perfect, and the worst that happened, was my umbrella getting sent home with her MIL. I should only wish that the genes would reverse to me!!! Now that she has her first child, (Audry Olivia- 8 wks old) she has the Building the House Binder. She spent a year designing it, and now has nearly all of the things ready to go into it as soon as the Men People get it ready! Of course when I ran into her in the store a couple weeks ago, the House Binder was right beside her diaper bag. I have a feeling that when she returns to work this week, the Binder will come along also. I hope that Baby is so blessed with the organization that her Mommy has!

Lisa, I considered suggesting she let Blaze play with the lead, but thought perhaps she should first teach him to leave it alone, then let him play! Also, I was assuming that she is just trying to teach Blaze manners, not planning to show him? If you are going to show, Lisa is correct, you cannot take toys or food into the ring. I was going to add that if you do find that a toy helps with the leash problem, you will now have a great training tool. You can use the toy in many ways as a reward. For example, you will probably be doing sit stays. You can take the toy with you when you leave your dog (hide it in a pocket or someplace). When you return and release your dog, you can tell him very enthusiastically how good he is, then toss him the toy and let him play for a few minutes. Make sure you get a "high motivation" toy, something he will really want to work for, but also something small enough that you can stick it in a pocket, or in a butt pack or elsewhere on your body so you can pull it out when you want and put it away at other times. There are several online resources for training toys, one I like is jjdog.com. You could read what they say about various toys and probably find something similar in a local store. In our agility classes, there are several people who use leads that are thick braided soft leads. When the dog does something great, they then get to play tug-of-war with the lead. Tug can be a great motivator, depending on your dog. Some people will not recommend playing tug, for two reasons - if you want your dog to be a hunting retriever, you don't want him playing tug, and if your dog is dominant, tug can increase the dominance. I have never had a problem with that, but it depends on your dog. In my opinion, the best way to get Blaze to work with you in training is to make it fun for him and to reward him highly for everything he does right. Good luck.

The plants are all real. Forgot to mention, each one has a little chair I made out of florist wire with a tiny upholstered seat - which also used up a few more fabric scraps. Also sprayed those with urethane so they don't rot too quickly or grow mildew. The hardest part about the whole thing for me was patience - waiting for stuff to dry thoroughly, and finding the plants to use. Due to the burst in popularity suddenly of mini gardening, WM & L's have had tiny succulents available. Possibly HD too, none close enough to visit. DH nailed the boxes together from scrap wood at his work. Sprayed everything, not just the quilted part, with urethane inside/outside so it will should last for a few years. I've got a thread about it in the house plant forum, if anyone would like way too many more details, more pics of these and other people's minis. OTOH, my Mom made one for my Son's teacher with all faux plants since we didn't know if she would appreciate the responsibility of live plants. She used much more mature-size stuff compared to the scene since they obviously won't grow to fill it in. It's daggone cute too but there's nothing quilted about it. It's in a little glass terrarium thing. This post was edited by purpleinopp on Thu, Jun 6, 13 at 11:54