I have the Lucy / Ethel model - my neighbors have her sister and her Aunt. We doxie - sit for each other. These dogs (sshh - don't let them hear me call them dogs) all sleep just like yours. They are so wonderful together. When I opened this thread very early this morning - I said I want one! Then I had to walk ours in the pouring rain while she couldn't find the "perfect" spot quickly! Enjoy you sweet puppy!!

Some good advice here already. I only have to add 'Persevere'. Honestly, it really doesn't take long to get used to what you call 'blandness'. It took me about a week, and now I add salt to nothing at all. If salt is added, I really, really notice it! That blandness isn't bland at all - it's just not salty any more! Up until now, the only thing you've really tasted is the salt - your taste-buds are attuned to salt, and not much else. Give it time, and soon you'll be getting the REAL taste of food! Meantime, keep well away from processed and packaged foods, frozen meals, take-aways etc. Even make your own bread. I can't comment from my own experience, but I do know from people who have travelled to America find the bread 'over there' is incredibly salty compared with what we get over here - make your own instead, using an absolute minimum of salt, or none at all. Use unsalted butter. Keep away from soft-drinks (carbonated colas and such - they have a lot of salt in them). Start using more herbs. Fresh is best, but dried is better than nothing. Here's a couple of salt-substitute herb mixtures you could try. You don't need to follow the recipes exactly if you don't have all the ingredients: Herbal Salt Substitute (1) 1/4 cup dried parsley 1/4 cup dried savory 1/4 cup dried savory 1/4 cup dried thyme 2 tablespoons dried marjoram Grind all ingredients together. Herbal Salt Substitute (2) 3 tablespoons dried basil 3 tablespoons dried marjoram 3 tablespoons dried parsley 3 tablespoons dried thyme 4 1/2 teaspoons dried chives 2 1/2 teaspoons dried paprika 1 1/2 teaspoons dried rosemary 2 1/2 teaspoons onion powder Grind all ingredients together. Meantime, check out this site:

Congrats on your first grandchild! We're grandparents through our DD so far. The only grandparents she knew were 'Grandma' who was my mother and 'G.P.' (short for Grandpa) who is DH's father. Those are the names she wanted DH and me to be called. But when her eldest began talking, DH easily became 'G.P.' (making my father in law now 'G.G.P.') But he couldn't say 'Grandma' so I became 'MumMum.' Now that his pronunciation is much better, DD asked if he'd like to start calling me 'Grandma.' But he declared that I will still be 'MumMum.' His explanation made sense to us. He calls DD 'Mummy' and hearing her always call me 'Mum,' he'd become aware that I am her mother. So he insists I still be called 'MumMum' because I'm his 'Mummy's Mum.' I guess 'MumMum' is a good way to shorten it and the word 'Grandma' just doesn't mean anything to him, lol!

Most folks I know of already eat highly processed nutrition sparse foods. Meats, processed carbs, fat, sugar and salt to feed desire to eat it. A cultivated taste and allows multinational factory-machine-based businesses to use cheap, easily mass-produced and petroleum intensive ingredients that have long shelf lives, ship all over world. That food is affordable to the masses, not the hand-crafted stuff. I see that trend continuing, and fewer and fewer being able to live or even care that they are missing out on the local, foodie lifestyle. We are the exception, not the rule. The menus in the few restaurants in my hometown are ground meat, pizza, chicken, simple pastas, processed carbs, and a choice of onions, carrots, celery and lettuce for vegetables, with perhaps coleslaw and crunchy tomatoes and a dill pickle or two. Of course lots of products made out of commodity crop/genetically modified soybeans and corn, sugar beets and wheat is on it's way towards that. Things that can be grown with minimal human effort but lots of machines and chemicals. I see that trend continuing despite the backlash. Food will less and less resemble the natural ingredients it came from, and we won't care. Also continuation of profiteering on people feeling unwell as a result. And a continuation of people working to counter that, in the counter culture. But they will be rarer and rarer and confined to pockets of culture surrounded by a sea of monotony. Kind of like monasteries kept culture alive in the Middle Ages. One can only hope cool innovative ways to live sustainably will come out of these pockets. Two conflicting tides moving in opposite directions. Some of us will band together and try to keep the old ways and old knowledge alive. Just like they did in the Middle Ages and just like we do now. In my impoverished state, there are some hotbeds of local culture and hand crafted food trends, but out in the hinterlands where the lower middle class and working class mostly live, there is an impoverishment of the food shed. My county used to be riddled with orchards, for example. A viable way for small businesspeople to make a living. Families I grew up with. All gone. Shows no sign of returning. Instead, fruit growing increasingly concentrated to fewer and fewer large growers, and profitable plant breeds. Same apple varieties for sale all over the region. Even the few remaining orchards in my region are struggling. At some point in the near future, the small family food producing business will be almost totally eradicated. It's close to it now, and the ones that are hanging on are running on fumes. Folks will work in agriculture, just not own the food production business. We are trying to figure out how to move to one of the better foodsheds. Everyone I know in my hometown says, "I have to drive somewhere to do all my shopping." Ironic since my town is the county seat and was once thriving with farms. That's how I grew up learning to love eating local. Also ironically, sooner or later it will be more and more difficult to drive somewhere, due to the cost of fuel. That will bring about an interesting dynamic. It's already here in my home town. The food available locally is what the poor people can afford because that's what will sell. The higher end stuff will mostly sit on the shelf. Yes, some left to buy, but not enough to make a profit on vs. cost of having unsold stuff sit on shelves. Our local supermarket is paring down selection, slowly but surely. Slow enough not to panic most folks is the key. Frog in slowly raising temperature water, not immediate boil.