My little grandchorkie's visit

Our furry grand baby Chorkie went back home to his parents recently, our older daughter and her husband, when they returned from their trip to Europe. I never mind keeping him because he likes his Nan (that's me). He really isn't any trouble other than having to work around his burning desire to hike that short leg and mark things in my house.

As you can see in the pics, he kinda resembles a muppet, with the fuzzy fur, pricked ears and snaggletooth expression. It makes him look approachable and pettable. But if Chorkie doesn't know you, he'll immediately bark his head off and act as if he might take a chunk out of you. Unfortunately, his instinct has always been fight rather than flee. Little man syndrome, no doubt, since he's half chihuahua and yorkie. 

Our Finn always tries to engage Chorkie in play. A couple of times each visit, Chorkie will cave and race around with Finn for a while. But Finn mostly gets a lot of bluffing growls when he moves into Chorkie's space, encouraging the little beast to act like a dog instead of a grouchy old man. 

As luck would have it, my niece drove up from Georgetown for her long weekend to hang out for a day. And so I was able to save the daughter and me a trip halfway to Austin to hand off the Chorkie. Since he's kennel trained, the snarky little muppet was fine riding with the niece to get back to his parents. Now I've started thinking about Christmas, when we'll have the girls here for several days. I'll need to figure out how to Chorkie-proof things like the tree and my life-sized Santa so they don't get tinkled on.

Grocery store entertainment

Every time I visit our overpriced "fancy" grocery store for fresh produce and baked goods, I run across some of the most entertaining beer names. Last month I spied Funnel Cake Ale. Last week Oklahoma Suks Beer caught my attention. It's a shame I'm not a beer drinker, because I find these really intriguing.

Feeling less summery, thankfully

I've enjoyed some time on the back porch lately thanks to more moderate temps, where I spy cool things like the sailboat folks out for a spin. The BER months truly are the most wonderful time of the year. This morning when I took the dogs for a walk in the hood, I passed several folks in long sleeve shirts. Obviously they aren't still doing the menopausal hot flashes like me. I don't imagine I'll personally be needing long sleeves or a light jacket for a while. Here in Texas, we don't usually need to switch the AC over to heat until December most years. And I don't imagine this one will be any different.

One of Finn's favorite things to do in the evenings when I'm perched on the sofa with my laptop is to camp out next to me. On occasion he'll assume the back pose, with his front paws in the air. This always cracks me up. He's such a sweet and funny little guy. The dogs are great little companions and truly seem to love lake life as much as I do. Our neighbor's oak trees have been dropping copious amounts of acorns, so the increased squirrel activity has kept the doggies entertained.

A doggy posse of three

With our older daughter and her husband taking a belated honeymoon trip to Europe for ten days, I volunteered to keep their furry child, Chorkie. He wouldn't do well with boarding because he's quite snarky, so I don't mind. Mostly. Chorkie gets along with our Finn and Pepper, plus it helps that he's kennel trained. 

The one thing I would absolutely change about Chorkie is his propensity to hike his leg and mark things. I don't mind that he pees on my back porch posts because it's easy enough to hose them off. What I DO mind is that he's also peeing on things inside my house. So far the leg hike count includes my fall greenery arrangement, decorated pumpkins, sofa and foot rest. If it resides on the floor, it's fair game for him to sprinkle it with tinkle. The silver lining is that he's a shorter guy and mostly hoses the ground instead of the thing he sidles up to in order to cock his leg.

I had decided not to do any preemptive spraying with the magic no mark stuff. However, it seems I'm learning my lesson the hard way - on my knees with a bleach rag wiping up urine - that the Chorkie will never outgrow this nasty habit since he turned six in August. In Chorkie's little doggy mind, everything is his and must bear his urine scent. 

After a recent Bible study at our new church home, I went to pick up lunch with a couple neighborhood friends. All three of the doggos were oh-so-happy to gobble up the bits of buttered bread I tore off and tossed to them from my lobster roll. Afterwards, little man Finn piled up with me on the sofa while I checked my social media feed. I've seen this look on his face many times before (see pic below), and it never fails to make me giggle. Oh sure, he's annoyingly adept at slaying lizards and geckos that I have to dispose of. But he's just so endearingly sweet, too. 

Long lost cousins

My mother was an only child. She spent her entire adult life longing for a sibling. My father was the youngest of seven. He spent most of his adult life having very little contact with his large, extended family. Which is a shame as far as I'm concerned.

Before my parents divorced when I was in third grade, we got to spend time with some of my father's family. But after they divorced, we only saw them a handful of times. My dad could be difficult, and I think he just never felt that close to his brothers and sisters. Maybe some of that was because he was the baby of the family. His parents were well into their 40s when he was born, and I can only imagine how challenging it must have been with a change-of-life baby born at the start of World War II. 

I was happy to discover over the summer that my cousin Connie lives conveniently close to our lake house. Her dad and mine were brothers. She and I have already met for lunch a couple times, and it has been so nice to reconnect with her. Because she's almost fifteen years older than me, she has kept in touch with some of our other cousins. And so earlier this month I hosted a few of them at our lake house for the day.  

After polling Connie and my sister, we landed on BBQ with all the fixin's for lunch. Connie provided several desserts, while I ordered these darling cupcakes below from a local baker I've been wanting to try. I'm happy to report they were as tasty as they were cute. After lunch, I took the kiddos and some of the adults for a tour of the lake in our pontoon, which they enjoyed. Because seriously... doesn't everybody like a boat ride?!

Connie brought several pics to share with the cousins. Both of my dad's parents died before I was born. If I had ever seen a picture of them, I was too young to remember. And thus it was a revelation to see a few images of my paternal grandmother, Ira Lee. Born in 1896, she missed my birth by three years. I was blessed with my wonderful maternal grandmother, Doris. And yet I can't help but wonder how much more my childhood might have been enriched by a relationship with Ira, too.

Another year around the sun

October always arrives with much anticipated fanfare (in my mind) because it's my birthday month. Plus it typically heralds the first time I'm able to wear closed-toe shoes without profusely sweating feet that earn me a set of nasty blisters. I always look forward to the October shoe switch, when I drag the step ladder into my closet to change out the sandals for loafers and boots. 

With our Texas weather finally backing off from the century mark, I haven't had to bathe the dogs as often. Which is back breaking work since the only tub in our lake house with a handheld nozzle is the master bath's jetted monstrosity. Finn has recently discovered he can make laps around the tub's ledge, which I find amusing. Up to this point he had only done laps after I had given him his bath and was bathing Pepper. His version of haha, I'm done and you're not. Now he just hops up and makes laps when the mood strikes. 

In a completely unrelated switcheroo of topic, my sister and I tried a new-to-us restaurant recently. There's no such thing as too much Cajun food, right? Everything was good on my shrimp sampler. Also, the stuffed potato and Brussels sprouts sides were tasty. But the bread pudding covered in warm bourbon sauce for dessert... worth every calorie, y'all!

Finally, I decided to include some recent pics of the girls. I'm currently keeping the CPA daughter and her husband's snarky little Chorkie since they're on a belated honeymoon trip in Europe. The law school daughter and her boyfriend just celebrated their one year anniversary, enjoying a fancy dinner out. I believe this kind and intelligent young man just might be "the one" for our girl, which is so exciting. Casting ahead to the holidays, I'm thrilled that I'll have both girls here for our first Christmas in the lake house. I included a little sneak peak pic of the life sized Santa I recently purchased, though he's still safely nestled in his box. He's just so darned cute, and will be a great addition to my collection. Did I mention our lake house will be one of the six featured ladies club Christmas tour of homes showplaces in mid December? Hang on for some upcoming posts about the plans I've already got brewing for it!

My view to the dock

I've been not-so-patiently waiting for our custom boat cover to arrive, and it was finally installed last week! It's so darned cool, y'all, to use my remote control to cover and uncover it. Because the old playpen cover made me NOT want to take the boat out for a spin. After I had our pontoon detailed in September, I asked them to put the playpen cover back on for me because that thing is a wooly booger to wrestle back on by yourself. But it was my first line of defense to keep the bug and bird population out of the boat when it's just hanging out in its cradle lift.

With end-of-summer rug sales happening last month, I decided to purchase one to put beneath the dining set on the dock. The pattern is a little busy, but I like the feeling of movement since it's sitting over the water. You can see in the pic that I'm keeping the dining set secured with a cable and padlock. It's not that I think someone will steal it. We often get fierce winds off the water, and so I didn't want any of our chairs getting blown into the lake. Our neighbor's Adirondack chairs down near the water got flipped in during an early summer storm. I was able to drag one out of the water that got wedged against our dock walkway, but the other one was lost. 

I recently heard our dogs barking in the back yard and went to check what was causing the ruckus. Turns out it was this beautiful scene below. There are several folks on the lake with sailboats that take them out in nice weather. I don't know why I'm so intrigued by sailboats, but I think it's a majestic sight when I get to witness one skimming across the water. There's something about it that I find very relaxing, and so very picturesque. 

My view to the dock was improved recently when I ordered two planters to flank the dock gate. We had that gate installed to keep little man Finn off the dock. Initially afraid of the dock, he soon developed the bad habit of racing out on the dock to chase away any ducks, geese or herons that dared to perch on HIS property. The gate initially worked as a Finn deterrent to keep him from going for an accidental swim. However, he then started eyeing the possibility of jumping that little expanse beside the gate onto the dock. So I ordered up two really heavy planters that I wrestled from the driveway to the dock gate with a neighbor's dolly. Then I worked up a sweat carting four 40 lb bags of topsoil as well as six bags of gray beach stones to fill them, along with a couple faux cedar bushes for the time being. It looks good, so yippee for sweat equity since I didn't hire our yard service to handle it.

Girls' weekend with the younger set

My niece L and her roommate M came to visit me recently. I toodled them around town, where we ducked into this super cute bakery for a variety of sweet treats to sample. I also took them to my favorite Tex Mex and Cajun restaurant, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.

We wrestled one of the kayaks out of the rack and used our new PWC cradle to launch it. They enjoyed paddling around for a while. Then we uncovered the boat and I took them on a tour of the lake. Nobody loves boating more than my niece L. 

We ended our day with a beautiful sunset. The next afternoon, once the girls were headed home, I went out to the boathouse to wrestle the play pen cover back on the pontoon. It didn't take long for sweat to start rolling in my eyes as I wrangled that thing back into place. Thankfully, my custom touchless boat cover is scheduled to be installed this week and I can hardly wait.

Lastly, I wanted to include a couple videos of little man Finn. He and Pepper both like to bark at the waves hitting our retaining wall. I don't know why they find this so aggravating, but there ya go. I'm also including a little snap I made of Finn racing across the backyard to bark at a couple of jet skis. I guess he thinks he needs to protect our property from the loud machines that get close to his domain.