Happy Thanksgiving!

I have four days off--yay!

My plans for today include:

• knitting for a couple of hours this morning (hoping to complete the first sleeve)
• taking the dogs out to play
• replacing the screen in the bedroom with the storm window (requires taping around the edges)
• putting plastic up over the south living room windows (easy to reach since they face onto the porch (I put the plastic up outside, away from the dogs))
• editing. I am not looking forward to this much, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to earn some extra money
• feeding cats
• taking the dogs out to play--probably when I feed the cats (this is my friend with the fenced yard)
• knitting in the evening. I so want to finish this sweater to wear next week! Also I find I'm getting restless and want to start something else, so I'm trying to blitz my way through sweater before I cast on another project.

I have two more cute T stories:

When I take the dogs out to play, we walk from the back door to the driveway--which is wide enough for two vehicles. I have them sit at the edge of the driveway, remove their leashes, and then release them, and they charge across the driveway and straight into the pen, so happy to be able to run and play!

Timber, being a practical boy, gets this: sit = running free. Taenzer, although extremely bright, isn't so practical and sees it more as sit = interfering with my fun. So Timber sits promptly and waits to have the leash removed and for me to say "okay!"

Most of the time. Last night he started off as soon as he felt the leash restraint lift. I said, "Timber, WAIT!" And bless his furry little heart, he put on the brakes like a quarter horse in a reining contest, stopped so fast and hard that he sat and skidded, then whipped around to face me. Of course I instantly released him with an "okay," but I was so pleased and proud of his reaction. What a good boy!

At night we were in the bedroom, and I was playing with Timber and his Wubba toy. I always name the toy when we're playing with it, and I'm not sure that he knows the word, but Taenzer does--she's brought it to me a couple of times when I asked her where it was. A few weeks ago I got another toy for them at K-Mart. It's this sort of--shape--with some fuzzy stuff on it--and a rope handle--and I don't know what it's called, so I've been calling it Walter. :) I always have this ulterior motive, trying to teach them object names when I'm playing with them, so I try to have simple names for all their toys, and this one is Walter. We haven't played with Walter much, so they haven't had much time to learn the word, but last night Taenzer was sort of hanging around lookng left out and forlorn while I was playing with Timber, so I said, "Taenzer, where's Walter? Go find Walter!"

She cast around in the bedroom and brought up Big Mean Kitty (that's really the name of the toy! If you have a dog who likes to shake toys, this is great!), and I said, "Thank you, Taenzer. Now go find Walter. Where's Walter?"

She trotted out of the bedroom, and I went back to playing with Timber. And she didn't come back and didn't come back, and I thought--omg, I wonder if she's really going to do it?? Because I'd put it in their toy box when I vacuumed earlier, and I knew it was under several other toys, and since she wasn't coming right back with something, she must be looking for something specific.

So sure enough, after quite a while, in she came with Walter! I was just thrilled and amazed and gave her many big hugs--and of course, I played with her! What a smart girl she is! I confess, I often underestimate her because she's such a goofball, but she's really really smart.