Our little dude, Copper, had some surgery last Friday. He’s been wearing this cone for a week - can you stand it? He’s been pitiful. The sound of scratching plastic has filled my ears and my head. Plastic scraping on the floor while Roomba Jr. tries to resume normal activities.

I’ve slept with him on the couch, scratched his itches, and made sure his water dish was full enough so that his little tongue could reach beyond the cone.

He looks at me with those big watery eyes as if he’s apologizing for spraying my pillow on his quest to dominate me in my home.

Yes, well, I think he’s learned his lesson, don’t you? (Kidding, it’s been a week - his incision has healed enough. Not that I was trying to teach him a lesson - he learned that one fast and furiously the day I washed my bedsheets THREE TIMES.)

Time to take the cone off…

You might not be able to tell from this photo, but Copper is smiling from eyeball to eyeball about his new bowls. We took a day trip to Ikea yesterday and found these cute bowls and matching mat and just HAD to get them for Copper. When we got home and started unwrapping and unpacking things, I replaced his old generic bowls with these new fancy ones and he went crazy. He kept coming up to us and bringing us over to his new dishes and then looking up with this little twinkle in his eyes.

It’s been a couple of months since I carried my camera around with any kind of passion to take a photograph. Winter had me tightly in its grips - until last week. I wore open toed shoes to church (my piggies are aubergine, go figure!). I cleared away the dead and dried out iris from last fall to reveal tulips and new iris making their way up out of the earth. I felt excited again! So much so that I even took the cover off the grill and fired it up, we had grilled chicken for dinner that night.

Aaah spring is coming.

My camera is at the ready once again, I removed the screen from the front window yesterday for clear photos once I saw the “official” confirmation of Spring in my front yard:

I’ve seen them around, yes, but I needed to see him in my front yard. He needed to be right there.

More random and springy snaps in between dog naps below!

Our resident red bellied woodpecker has begun making regular appearances
on the suet block out back,

While Copper collected all of his toys,
and one of my furry flip flops,
in and around his cozy little shoebox.

I’m debating what to do with my bathroom, tile, paint, wallpaper?
We’re still piecing it together…

While Copper takes a nap.

I admired the architecture of the buildings around Palmer College
on the way home last weekend,

Quintin joined in the St. Patrick’s Day festivities,
donning a clover scrunchie,

And our sweet little Chickeymonkey
smiled adorably at her piano recital…

While Copper took a nap.

The red bellied woodpecker made yet another loud entrance
(you can’t miss ‘em when you hear ‘em)…

And we figured out how to fix this mess and reinstall the toilet,

While Copper took a nap.

As you can see, Copper sleeps through most everything, and I have entirely too much stuff to do. Any suggestions on the bathroom remodel are MORE than welcome. My dear sweet hubby can tell you how many times I’ve changed my mind about what to do, since I’ve lost count. I was going to install ceramic tile last weekend until the floor decided to be WAY too unlevel (we live on a slab) to even out without a professional and a load of concrete - and I ended up at Lowe’s 5 minutes before closing time for peel & stick flooring.

I cannot tell you how I yearn for a custom built home. Maybe next year, eh?