Our house is a zoo and I feel like a daycamp counselor.  Penny is spending the week with us while my parents vacation in Napa.  Past visits have been somewhat harrowing, what with eating an entire onion and several bars of soap, but this one is going rather smoothly.  Almost too smoothly.  Penny is being a very good houseguest and has made good use of Gracie's crate.  Gracie hates her crate and never goes in it unless she knows she's been bad, so we didn't think it would be a big deal.

Oh, but it is.

Gracie isn't sharing well.  Terrible twos?  Perhaps.  Everytime Penny picks up a toy, Gracie has to have it.  Penny gets in one of the FIVE dog beds we have in the house, Gracie wants to lie only in that one.  Penny gets in the cage, Gracie gets in, too.

The only time she's semi-okay with the sharing situation is when they're in the beds in the family room.  Why?

BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME BED.

And you can see that Gracie is still kind of pissed about the whole thing while Penny clearly couldn't care less.  (Penny is in Gracie's, Gracie is in Penny's.)

I like having Penny around, but, man, is it exhausting.  We're a little more on-guard since Penny is a thief and will eat everything, including drywall.  But there are also many more paws to clean, heads to wipe (Penny loves to help in the kitchen) and ears to scratch.  I've actually been playfully pestering Justin to let us get another dog so G would have a friend, but I'm reversing my position on that.  Now I just want a good dog friend for G, one who lives next door or something.  While we are surrounded by dogs in our neighborhood, we haven't found a perfect fit for G.  (Grumpy Gus is a kazillion years old.  Jack and Jack's Friend would be perfect, but their owner works kind of strange hours.  So Gracie just stares at them through the fence.)

Anyway - daycamp counselor.  They both had makeovers Sunday night (brushing and a good wipe down with doggie wipes, and Gracie got her nails did), and last night the three of us took an exhausting walk around the perimeter of our rambling neighborhood.  (I have no idea why, but Gracie has suddenly decided she must walk in the middle of the street at all times.  I wish for the days when she sat in the gutter and cried when we tried to take her for a walk.)  Tonight, we're going shopping.  Yes.  My mom sent Penny with $20, so we're going to go visit Kyra at Land of Paws and look for something fun.  And then maybe we'll come home, unroll our sleeping bags and talk about boys.

Someone is an only dog.

I cleaned the first floor of the house last night and even though my foot hurts from all the standing and vacuuming and dusting, I feel a lot better. I think Gracie is very glad that I picked up the makeshift tile layout from the living room. It was making her nervous. The complete disaster upstairs still gives me heart palpitations, so I'm only going up there once a day for clothes and makeup.

In addition to all the cooking, picking up and general fretting I did last week, I got to hang out with these two idiots:

The idiot on the right, in the course of one week, ate a bar of soap, an onion, blueberry pancakes and some vegetable fried rice. The idiot on the left has learned a new game where she plays with her toys very close to the entertainment center, pushes them underneath the entertainment center and then cries until someone gets the toy for her. I hate this game. This is the worst game in the world. So I refuse to play the game and she has to wait for Justin to get the toy for her. And those two and a half hours he's in class two nights a week are very, very long for her.

(Aren't Gracie's eyes WEIRD? It's like she's sucking your soul.)

It seems like I'm never able to get enough rest, but this week has been particularly tiring. The reason?

That would be Miss Gracie (and her new friend, Augie the eyeless Froggie) looking lovingly at her Aunt Penny. My parents are in Colorado for the week, so P has been with us since last Friday. The first few days were...tumultuous. Utter mayhem. They've finally settled down, but it's still like living in a blender. Gracie is normally a great sleeper and doesn't wake us up too early, but this morning they decided "Hey! It's 5:00! We're thirsty! Let's get a drink!" and they tromped around the house like two little kids with fists full of Pixie Stix. My parents come back from their vacation tomorrow. It will be nice to have some peace, but I know both of the girls are just going to be distraught once they're apart.

I managed to finish a little spinning in the meantime:

234 yards of sock weight, 60 grams (2.1 oz). I have half of the fiber left to spin, so these will make excellent socks! I named the colorway "Fawkes." We could all use a rising phoenix, I think.