Excellent, Michelle! And today while my hairdresser worked on my highlights we talked about her daughter, about 15 months old now, and in particular her LOVE of being read to. When she described the routine her daughter has built up, as many as six books at a sitting, I remembered so well those days with my children. You could never read just one, you were lucky if you could stop at three. Put those books into play and let other families build those memories!

I went to the office today, turned in the paperwork, and was told I wasn't supposed to be at work until the doctor signed off at the end of the week, so I have a couple of days to putter around the house (between ice packs - they really do work well, especially on the thigh bruise). Before the paper was handed over and before I headed back home a health and safety person met me and had me show her where I tripped - when I found it I was astonished - it's a lip of over an inch at the edge of a brick path inset into the area. And I was able to find fragments of the pot I dropped to show how I staggered to keep my balance. I've been lucky so far not to hit it; when we looked around there were lots of those kinds of hazards in the area. Perhaps recent rains heaved the concrete more, but whatever the cause, the walkways in the area are a mess.

After the vet visit today we are back home with a generally good bill of health and the vet's okay to go along with the "slow kill" method of getting rid of the heartworms. If she develops symptoms showing that they are there, then look to the three-step method that the vet does. She did growl at the vet and the tech when he checked her over - he said it's mostly the breed, they're a bit skittish. What I find interesting is that like Poppy and Cinnamon, she has decided this is her home and I am her human and once they decide that then this is the house they protect and the person they guard. Zeke came and went a lot as a visitor, living with Susie for the first year we knew him, so his integration into the household was much more gradual. I knew he was officially part of the pack when he didn't want to leave the house without the others, and they didn't want him to leave without them. Before that he used to come and go with Susie and they knew he was just a visitor. Pepper knows she's here to stay, not a visitor.

Tons of projects rise before me this evening. Where to begin? I'll try to be up early enough to do some gardening and walk the dogs before it gets hot. I have lots of salvia shrubs sprouting where the yard was dug up last fall, and I can stand to reuse them in other areas or give them away, but for now they need being put into pots.