The dog ate...

 

Prior to owning a dog, I had no idea how true it could be if a child said, "the dog ate my homework." Dogs eat just about anything, and paper products are definitely high on Milo's list. I've taken notes on a piece of paper, made the mistake of leaving it on the couch (which wasn't a problem for most of my life), and then had to write everything down again because Milo ate the paper. This week he destroyed one book. Thankfully it was a Magic Tree House book we owned that I got very inexpensively, and Oliver had just finished reading it. At first I was going to try to salvage it, and then decided to just toss it to the recycling bin. Some of the things he's chewed on cost a lot more to repair or replace than a paperback book such as our kitchen table chairs, couch cushions, and couch pillows. As much as I love him, there are times I regret the fact we bought a puppy because of all the damage he's done to our home and belongings. The most recent moment I felt that way was when he destroyed Ian's eyeglasses. Ian took them off because he wanted me to clean them. He set them on the armrest of a couch. Milo got ahold of them and was in the process of chewing them to bits when we extricated a what was left of the eyeglasses from Milo's mouth. Ian's first pair of glasses never were broken. He got a new pair when he outgrew the first one and also needed a new prescription. We've replaced the second pair multiple times. The pair that Milo destroyed I had just purchased at the end of May. I certainly don't want to be buying Ian a new pair of glasses every three months!! For now he's using a previous pair that we taped together. He's only using them when he's reading. I assume the new pair will arrive while we're on vacation. He'll have to wait a month to receive the new glasses. Hopefully these will last a lot longer. As much as Milo makes me want to scream at times, I will miss him while we're on vacation. I did tell the dog sitters about what happened with Ian's glasses as I want to be sure they keep Milo in his crate when they're not supervising him because I don't want him to destroy anything in their home!

The temperatures dropped this week. Although the hot temperatures were good for swimming outdoors last week, in general I love it when the temps are in the 70's. Although I accomplished many of the things I wanted to this summer, I didn't take regular walks with Milo as I had hoped that I would. This week I've started taking Milo for some walks. He loves it! Oliver has joined me for some of them. I know we'll be getting more exercise on our vacation, but I'm hoping to get at least one nice walk in each day before we leave. The kids and I also worked on moving apple tree branches from the backyard. That was  BIG project. Nadia picked up hundreds of pounds of apples and put them in a bunch of garbage cans. I was finally able to completely mow that area of the lawn for the first time in almost a month. This apple tree has been more of a nuisance than a blessing the last few years.  Most homeschoolers around here have big gardens and do a lot of canning and such. That is definitely not my interest or my forte. We've tried and failed with growing strawberries and blueberries in our backyard, and now it seems the same is true for apple trees.