Lurki, I understood what you meant. Since he is 8 weeks, I haven't scolded him YET. I generally wait until I am pretty darn sure they know where to go potty before I scold them. Jack is not there yet. He does well on a leash when we are walking but putting it on him in the yard has been a nightmare. He grabs it with his teeth and rolls over and over. (Think alligator death roll.) It's dangerous right now! He does fine if I'm walking him but standing around to wait for him to do his business isn't working. He comes when called, so I have been taking him way out in the yard to do his business. He still thinks he should run to poop on the porch but I have distracted him each time and mopped the porch with bleach water. (I think he is used to going on a pad.) ***He has peed and pooped in all the right places last evening and today***. Woo!! I'm slowing changing his diet. I know all about that. Roo, I will readily admit I plan to be a terrible mom right here and now. He will be eating commercial dog food. Bill-Jack is high end. I've raised a few pups on it and feed the high end salmon stuff to my adults. I simply refuse to cook for two dogs with a collective weight of 150 pounds. If they were small dogs, no problem. I cooked for 120 pound Dubs for 4 months and I'm soo done with that for now. I'm taking Jack to the vet for a check up in an hour. He has a health guarantee if we get him in before three days. Now THE VET is the place that scares me for contracting Parvo, etc. I won't let him down inside the vet hospital. I am a years long, ardent watcher of The Dog Whisperer although I admit to projecting a bit of human feelings on my dogs. I'm trying to watch the messages I'm projecting but got stressed out once this morning when he was spazzing out, biting everything in sight including my robe and a blanket. I gave him (and me) a time out for a few minutes behind the puppy gate. When he quieted down for a few minutes, I let him back out when both of our mindsets had changed. I do think dogs feed on energy so I'm trying to be aware of mine. As far as puppy classes, we've done them with the last three pups and will do them again for socialization/refresher. We live rurally and the puppy classes we took were much like I imagine Petco's to be, only way more expensive. He's not quite old enough for puppy classes right now. I don't feed milk bones for treats either. Oakley, I took Jack outside before bed and he slept until 6:00 AM. Success!! Bulldog pups and Lab pups are hugely different! Bullies are low key as pups. Lab pups can eat your sofa before breakfast! Thanks everyone!! If you think of anything else, please post it. It takes a village to raise a pup!

Oh camlan, I think you've hit on a good idea there. I just checked the regional talking library offerings, and they're excellent. Loads of stuff my mom would enjoy. Also, looks like I can arrange a shared password; I could make the selections & have them shipped for her, bypassing my stubborn dad. (The talking library is affiliated with a regional university -- doubly intimidating!) To return the audiobooks & player, probably all they'd have to do is repackage them & stick it in their mailbox for pick up. So easy! Looks like some of the audiobooks are downloadable too. Maybe I could still get an mp3 player for my dad and let his curiosity for gadgets take over. That would help to sell the basic idea. (heh heh!) The only obstacle is getting my folks to fill out that downloadable application form. It can be impossible to get my dad to do anything that isn't his idea -- he wants to be in complete control, y'know how that goes? And my mom defers to him. Thanks very much for the tip. I'll look into it further & see if I can get my sister on board. Dad does have a soft spot for the "baby" of the family ;)

I didn't really intend to go into routine maintenance and the defrag is a good maintenance item to do occasionally and should be done after a disk check. If you have bad sectors on your hard drive it will complicate the defrag and it'll cause performance problems too. Other maintenance, clean out old files, sort so you can find things, organize your computer, wipe the dust off it, and other stuff! Jodi, that's a great analogy on defrag. I'm gonna "Berle" it! ;) alisande, static electricity is way over-hyped. If you're in a dry climate and walk on the carpet, yes you can get some static sparks. And yes, you need to be careful when in the computer. There are static leashes that some swear by, but I never use them. If you know what you're doing, you're fine and the leash won't prevent other problems. When you open the computer UNPLUG IT FIRST. This should be a no-brainer, but... Then pull the screws if so equipped and open it up. If you've walked around a dry room on carpet, touch the metal case or the back of the power supply before sticking your hand in there to discharge yourself. Using a vacuum won't generate static electricity. Incidently, when using the vacuum, get the big chunks out first then turn it to blow to loosen up underneath the board and in the power supply. If your computer is really packed with lint you should use compressed air or else open the power supply. Be careful of the capacitors in there... FWIW, I don't recommend keyboard covers except in rare situations. Do you REALLY HAVE to eat cookies and crackers like a slob, right over the keyboard? The occasional lint, dust, dirt and crumbs can be removed by turning it over, tapping gently and a spurt of compressed air occasionally. Keyboard covers break, crack, get hard and somehow spending $30 on a $5 keyboard doesn't seem to make much sense to me. I even know people who put plastic bags over the keyboard because they insist on using them as a plate. Considering how full of bacteria a keyboard is to start with and people having to have food on it on top of it... eeewwwwwww... I find that disgusting! LOL Set the computer aside and eat for 5-10 minutes. And wipe the keyboard occasionally and do your phone too. They're dirtier than your toilet seat, did you realize that? Now go wash your hands and enjoy your computer! :)

Thank you for all the replies. The hourly figures are all over the place, which I guess makes sense. We had a sort of hybrid situation with our Handy Guy, who did a lot of the work himself but also found us other people for things like hardwood flooring. He lives in Atlanta and has a wide circle of trades to draw on. For example, he painted one of our hall bathrooms himself, and once when he was down he had a couple of free hours and painted our very long wooden fence across the front of the property as a surprise for me. (He also fixed it when a tree came down during a storm.) But when we had a LOT of stuff to paint, we hired his paint contractor friend. He changed the bulbs in the outdoor lights and cleaned out their glass globes when he did that just because he knew they would look better clean. He painted about 36 of our wooden doors black, first de glossing, then priming, two coats of one kind of paint and a final coat of something else. That job took him two and a half weeks, and then when he would come down subsequently he always checked every one and did touch ups. He constructed our "tennis hut" where we store the ball machine and all the accoutrements, hung six HUGE fiberglass backboard panels by himself and rigged a net over the place where balls seem to always go over the fence. He redid the sluice for our pond! And he helps---helped--- me with the spring planting. This year he put grow lights in an unused garage and wintered our five sago palms, which are now almost too big to use. And he was going to build a greenhouse for them this year :-( i really want someone to come weekly for a set fee so I won't have to call and make an appointment for a time that may not be convenient for me. Someone who can do most of the work is but who jobs out certain projects is fine. Our guy even reupholstered a bench in one of our bedrooms and tiled a wall in the downstairs bath and had custom bath counters made for two baths which he installed. I would like to find someone with a wide variety of skills who can sand, paint, do outside maintenance (including brick tuck pointing) and can climb up and check the portico roof monthly, stuff like that. He had a checklist....and I never worried about anything! Definitely worth what we paid.....he could tend bar! Chispa, I would appreciate the name of that company in case they have a franchise anywhere near us. Will also check Mr. Handyman, thank you Bonnie Ann! We have an excellent electrician, landscaping service and heavy machinery people (who dredge the creek, bushhog the pasture AND they laid over a half mile of fiber optic cable for our internet service, and re gravel our drive every other year.) i need a combination handyman and guy with a good eye for detail. I know I won't find that.