Category: Uncategorized

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Dots, Lines, Words, and Funny Clothes

So yesterday, The Lady and I were sitting in our library thinking about all of the books that we could read together once she finished her semester.  The Lady said she doesn’t have enough time to read very many books during the school year.  To me, that seemed like a funny thing to say because I thought school was all about reading lots of books and learning new stuff.  I asked her about this and she said that school books are different from reading books.  Maybe that is because most of her school books are filled with lines and dots and curly things instead of letters and words.  I like books where the words all go together and tell a story.  Her line and dot and curly things books don’t tell a story, at least they don’t tell a story that this little furry blue and orange monster can read.

And as of today,  school is officially over for The Lady!   Tonight was graduation at her school.  That where her students go when they are all done with reading school books.  The clothes that she has to wear when she goes to graduation are funny looking, especially the hat.  Why does anyone want to wear a square on their head?  I definitely don’t want to.   That square hat doesn’t fit over my horns at all.  And that pink and green thing around her neck…I like that even less than the funny square hat.  Orange and blue are so much prettier than pink and green!  The Lady told me that she has to wear those colors…something about all of the school books with dots and lines that she read and the school she went to when she was reading them.  That’s too bad for her.  She should have picked different books or a different school or maybe both!

The good part of all of this is that it is now summer vacation time at our house!  We’ll see what kind of books we find to read now.  Maybe there are some about furry little monsters like me.  Hopefully whatever books I read won’t make me have to wear funny looking clothes when I am done!


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Flowers and Fixes

The Lady is in her final week.  No wait…that sounds bad…in her FINALS week, her last week of school and she is very busy and sleepy and kind of grouchy…but don’t tell her I said that.  Last night she didn’t have time to help me write because she had to scribble in purple ink all over a bunch of papers.  They were not very pretty when she was done.  I think the papers might have looked better if she had used blue and orange ink to color on them.

Last night before we had dinner, we did go outside to look at the garden.  There was a tree with some new flowers on it.  The flowers were great big and had Christmas lights in them.  Don’t they look light Christmas lights in the middle?


The Lady said that it is not a Christmas light; those are parts of the flower called stick-mans and stay-mans.  Those names don’t make any senseto me, but I think that’s what she said.  They sure look more like Christmas lights than they do any kind of man – stick or staying.  Maybe they are stick-mans and stay-mans because these flowers are called Man-gos.  But wait if it’s Man-gos, why do they have stay-mans?  And does the stick-man stay or go?  I’m so confused.

Hold on a minute while I go ask The Lady to explain all of this to me…

I now know more about these Christmas light flowers than I ever wanted to.  They are called MAGNOLIAS, not man-gos.  And the Christmas light part is stigmas and stamen.  I’m still confused, but at least now I don’t have to worry about stick men coming and going.  


*****

I like to go get the recycling stuff and presents out of brick box in our front yard.  I still don’t know why the guy in the little white truck always brings back and stuffs the brick box with all the recycling stuff that Mr. Guy had put out in the blue bin for the big white truck to take away.  I think these guys are all confused about what is staying and what is going!  The recycling is supposed to go away.  The guy in the little white truck brings more recycling than he does good stuff, but you never know when the good stuff will come so we have to look every day to see what he left after Mr. Guy puts the recycling back in the blue bin.

Today there was a big package in the brick box.  I was excited because I thought it might be something for me. I haven’t gotten a package in a long time.  


I looked at the name on the package and it did not say Blueper B.  It said Kris B.  (That’s The Lady’s other name.)  I was sad that the present wasn’t for me.  I need some new t-shirts.  The Lady said that it was new clothes for her from a place called Stitch Fix.

Stitch Fix?  

If the clothes are new, why do they already need to be fixed?  Maybe this is one of those things like when The Lady gets boxes full of lots of balls of string and tells me its a sweater.  The balls of string are not a sweater!  She has to use her sticks to make them become a sweater.  I guess this Stitch Fix thing is pieces in a kit to make-your-own clothes.  If The Lady doesn’t have time to help me write my blog post, I don’t know how she is going to have time to fix all the stitches so that she has clothes!  And if she tries to use her sweater sticks to fix her kit clothes, I think her clothes might end up with big holes in them.  And if her clothes end up with big holes in them, she’ll be REALLY grouchy!

But what do I know?  I’m just a (naked) little blue and orange furry monster!  Maybe after The Lady’s final week, we can go shopping…FOR ME!
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A New Kind of Strings

We had a quiet day today.  I watched and listened to The Lady play with a different kind of strings than she usually does.  She sometimes plays with sticks and string, but they don’t make any noise and when she is done playing with them she has a hat, or a blanket, or mittens.  Today’s strings were different.  They aren’t soft.  They are attached to a weirdly shaped piece of wood with a long handle.  And, they make noise.  When The Lady is done playing with them,  they go into what I discovered is a really comfortable fur-lined box that has the same weird shape as her hunk of wood with the long handle that holds her strings.  

I took a nap in her comfy box while she made noise.  It was a great day for this little blue and orange furry monster!

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In the Dark

I sure will be glad when The Lady is all done with her school year.  She always comes into my room to say good-bye in the morning before she goes to work.  I think she leaves for work in the middle of the night.  It is super dark when she kisses me good-bye.  This furry little blue and orange monster is not awake when it is super dark outside.  I’m not even awake when it is still a little dark outside.  My eyes are squeezed closed and I am sound to sleep until the sun is nice and bright.  I don’t know who The Lady teaches when she goes to school in the middle of the night.  I guess there are people who have to go to school then.  I’m sure glad that I am notone of them.  I get to stay at home and learn from Mr. Guy!

When I woke up this morning, I sort of remembered The Lady talking to me before she left.  I thought she said that when she got home that she needed to take a picture of me in my Him Den for her picture taking group.

Him Den?  

Did she mean my room?  I’ve never heard her call my room a Him Den before.  

I hoped that wasn’t what she meant because my room is not very neat right now.  Mr. Guy did all of the laundry yesterday and I have not put mine away yet.  And, I’d have to pick up my books and crayons and make my bed because I know The Lady wouldn’t want my Him Den to be messy in her picture.

Him Den???

When I was finally awake enough to join Mr. Guy for breakfast, I asked him what a Him Den was.  He was as confused as I was.  He had no idea what a Him Den was.  He said that some people talk about a Man Cave and told me that a Man Cave is where guys can go to get away from girls.  Hmmm.  I thought a Him Den maybe sounded sort of like a Man Cave.  I asked Mr. Guy if we have a Man Cave.  He laughed and said, “Are you kidding?  We live with The Lady, Girl Offspring No. 1, two girl dogs, and a girl cat.  No!  We do not have a Man Cave; in fact, our whole house is a She Shed!”

A She Shed?

He explained to me that a She Shed is space for girls to do what girls do and a place to keep all of their girl stuff like yarn and magazines and fabric and craft stuff.  

So, I learned something today, but I still was not sure what The Lady meant by a photo of me in my Him Den.  I had to wait until she got home to figure that out.

When The Lady finally got home, I barely said “hi” before I asked her about this Him Den photo thing.  She laughed at me and said that I must have been really asleep when we talked this morning.  She didn’t say Him Den.  She said Den Him.  I thought for a minute.

Him Den.  Man Cave.

Den Him.  Cave Man.

The Lady thinks I look like a Cave Man???

I am furry, sort of like a cave man, but I am not a cave man!  I am a sweet little blue and orange furry monster!  Now my feelings were kind of hurt.  The Lady asked me what was wrong and I told her that she hurt my feelings by calling me a cave man.  She laughed at me.  “I don’t think you are a Cave Man…or a Den Him.  I am talking about what I need for you to wear, a fabric called D-E-N-I-M, denim.  It’s the fabric that jeans are made from.”

Ohhhh!  Now this all makes more sense!

Mr. Guy, The Lady, and I all have blue jean DENIM jackets.  All she wanted was for us to take a family picture with all of us wearing them.  What a relief!  

I didn’t have to fold my clothes or pick up my crayons.  This all did start me thinking…Maybe I should work on turning my room into a Him Den so that Mr. Guy and I have a boy place where we can go to figure out all the girls that we live with!

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I Am Out of Hibernation!

I can’t believe that it has been so long since I have written.  I have been acting more like a bear that like a little blue and orange furry monster.  I haven’t felt much like being out and about lately.  All of the sudden, the world has seemed like a big and scary place.  I feel most safe when I am at home with Mr. Guy and The Lady, but sometimes they turn on the Tell-Me, or whatever that electric box thing with pictures is called, and it is full of all kinds of people telling me about kids being shot at school and policemen being killed, and food making people sick because it has vanilla salmon in it and the people running our country aren’t very nice or well-behaved.  It just doesn’t seem like a place I want to spend too much time.  I have been happy at home coloring and listening to music.  I like those things, but Mr. Guy and The Lady think it is time for me to stop hibernating like a bear and live like the happy little monster that I really am.  They said that they would protect me when we are away from home.  I believe them; they have always taken good care of me so I am going to enjoy going places again.

Mr. Guy and The Lady went to Atlanta last weekend.  I did not want to go.  When they got back, though, they told me that they had dinner with Ms. Debbie who has been a friend of The Lady’s for a long time, but they had not seen each other for lots of years.  The Lady told me that Ms. Debbie asked all about me.  When I heard that, I was sad that I had not gone.  I wish I had met The Lady’s friend.  The Lady told me not to worry,  I will have another chance to meet Ms. Debbie.  That made me smile!

I did make two trips in the last couple months with The Lady.  Mr. Guy did not go with us.  I think he likes hibernating like a bear too.  Maybe it’s a boy thing.  I went to a place called Mini-apples and Will-he-walk-here.  At least I think that’s where I went.  Those seem like funny names for places to go, especially since I didn’t see any apples and I don’t know who the “he” is that was supposed to be walking.  I sure hope it wasn’t supposed to be me.  I don’t walk; I’m always carried.  I do know that in both places I saw my friend Ms. Joni and it snowed.  The Lady said that those two things together were a coincidence.  Ms. Joni does not make it snow!

On both of these adventures, Ms. Joni carried me since Mr. Guy wasn’t there.  She seems happy to be with me and that makes me happy!  Ms. Joni even used a picture of the two of us in Mini-apples on her Christmas card!

Ms. Joni also monster-sat me while The Lady was at a meeting.  (That’s why we in Mini-apples.)  She is a fun monster-sitter.  Ms. Joni made me cookies and she let me have all that I wanted and I got to eat them in bed!

Oh, and Ms. Joni made me my orange sweater than I have on in our picture.  She really is a nice friend!

Ms. Joni lives in Will-he walk-here.  The Lady and I visited her at her house.  She showed us all the neat things to see and do in her city.  We rode the bus to see some great big domes that were filled with plants and flowers.  It was a very pretty place.  They even had orange and blue flowers!



I had fun looking at all of the pretty flowers, but it was a very cold trip.  I wanted to wear a t-shirt instead of my sweater when we left Texas.  That was not a good decision.  My sweater would have felt much better!  I was a cold little monster, especially when I went outside to play in the snow.  The Lady told me how to lay down in the snow and make an angel.  I don’t know if I made an angel, but I’m pretty sure I made a frozen monster!


Now I am back in Texas.

It is warm here in Texas now.  Today, Mr. Guy and The Lady took me to the park to play at the playground.  It felt good to be outside and to get some fresh air.  



All the people at the park were nice. Maybe if I don’t listen to the people on the Tell-Me box thing, I will be a happy monster and enjoy going places and meeting new people again.

It was so happy that Mr. Guy was with me and that The Lady took some new pictures of us.  We haven’t had our picture taken together in a long time!


Every May, The Lady helps me write a blog post every single day.  That is hard work for both of us, but we always have fun when we do it.  

Thank you for reading my blog.  I hope you will come back.  I am looking forward to lots more adventures this month.

Thank you for being my friend!
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Nose Job

Just when I was about to call (LBAOFMPS (Little Blue An Orange Furry Monster Protective Services) because Mr. Guy and The Lady haven’t taken me to do anything fun in a long time, they woke me up early this morning and told me that we were going on an adventure this weekend.  I was a little irritated because I had no time to figure out which t-shirts I wanted to wear for our adventure.  The Lady said that where we were going, it was cold and that a t-shirt, even with all of my fur, would not keep me warm.  She told me that the weather was perfect for me to wear my new orange sweater that Ms. Joni made for me over the summer.  That made me smile!  I have not had an opportunity to wear it yet.

We got to the airport very early.  The clock had threes and zeros in the time and it was very dark outside.  It sure seemed like nighttime to me, but there were lots of people at the airport.  We stood in line for a long time before Mr. Guy put me in the bin and the guys in the blue shirts took pictures of my insides.  That took so long that we didn’t have to wait at all before it was time to get on the plane.

We found our seats and got settled.

And then we sat and sat.  Mr. Guy told me that we were supposed to leave at 5:05am(no wonder it felt like night time), but that didn’t happen.  I fell asleep for a little while.  When I woke up, we were still on the ground.  A guy in a not so pretty green vest was talking to the pilot.  Ive seen these guys outside the plane before, but never inside.  I wasn’t sure seeing him inside was a good thing.

About the time I decided things were OK, the pilot announced that we had too much fuel on the plane and they were going to take some off.  I don’t know anything about flying planes, but I’m pretty sure that they need fuel to fly and I think that too much is better than too little.  The airplane people didn’t agree with me.  We stayed on the ground for an extra hour while they drained some fuel.

We finally took off and I went back to sleep.

I was awaken by hearing the pilot talking to us again.  This time he was saying that the airplane’s nose had a problem.  I thought that maybe the airplane might have a cold, but Mr. Guy said it was more serious than that.  He said that an airplane’s nose has a wheel and we need that wheel to land on the ground.  Our airplane’s nose was broken.  That sounded even more serious than there being too much fuel on the plane or the airplane having a cold.

The pilot flew us around and around in circles to burn even more fuel.  He told us that we were going to try to land and don’t be alarmed by all of the fire trucks and rescue vehicles on the runway. I wasn’t alarmed;  I was worried!  I have been on lots of airplanes and we have never landed with fire trucks on the runway.  Mr. Guy told me that since they had taken the extra fuel off of the plane there shouldn’t be too much that could catch on fire if we landed wrong.  That did not make me feel any better.  I was a kind of scared little blue and orange furry monster.

Happily, we landed OK.  We bumped a little and then stopped on the runway.  The fire trucks all watched us.  And, I watched them.

Then we waited for a tow truck to pull us to the gate so that we could get off the plane.  In the end everything was OK, but this was more adventure than this little monster wanted!

In all of the plane excitement, I never even asked Mr. Guy and The Lady where we were going.  I remembered to do that when we got off of the plane.  They told me that we were flying to Newport News, Virginia and then driving to meet some picture taking people in Colonial Williamsburg.  I was not too excited about getting on another plane today, but I was a brave monster. The Lady told me that we were meeting the same people that I met back in June at The Norfolk Botanical Gardens.  Finally, something happy in my day!  I liked the day that I spent with these picture taking ladies over the summer.

I stayed awake on this second flight.  I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what was going on at all times!  This flight was much shorter and much less eventful.  The most exciting thing about it was that I got popcorn in an orange bag!

When we finally got to our hotel, I was a sleepy little monster.  Mr. Guy and The Lady went to dinner with a few of the picture taking people and their significant others.  I stayed at the hotel and slept.  I may have watched a little bit of HGTV, but mostly I slept.  I want to be all rested for tomorrow when I get to visit Colonial Williamsburg with my friends.

While I was writing this, The Lady told me that she got a message from Ms. Sherri, one of The Lady’s picture taking friends and one of my Hundred People friends. She is meeting us tomorrow and told The Lady that she has a surprise for me!  I like surprises.  Well, some surprises.  I like the ones that nice people make for me.  I don’t think I like the kind of surprises that airplanes make!

Good night!

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Back To School…For Some

Things are about to change at my house!  School is starting so Mister Guy and The Lady are going back to work.  Mr. Guy had to go back last Monday for teacher work days.  That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  Just the teachers were there.  No students.  If a teacher’s job is to teach students and there were no students, how could they be working?  They didn’t haven’t papers to grade or anything.  Mr. Guy said he just had to go to lots of meetings.  That doesn’t sound like very much fun to me.  I wonder if he learned anything???

The Lady has a few meetings and has to give some tests this week.  I sort of understand the meetings, but tests?  The Lady hasn’t even had any classes and she is already giving tests. She said that the tests aren’t the kind of test that you take in a class.  The Lady called them placement tests.  She said that these tests help her to advise the students as to what classes they need to register for.  I don’t think that I want to go to a school where they give you a test before they even teach you anything!

On Friday, Mr. Guy spent the day getting his classroom ready.  Since he teaches students about computers, that meant plugging in lots of stuff and pushing lots of buttons to make sure that all of the computers worked properly.  He is good at that kind of stuff.  In the afternoon, The Lady and I went to school with him to help make his classroom pretty.  We got to hang stuff on the wall, arrange some shelves, and do his bulletin boards.  Mr. Guy is not so good at that kind of thing.

While I was in his classroom, Mr. Guy showed me what he does all day.  It was kind of like take your monster to school day.


Mr. Guy has his own special computer.  From his computer he can see the screens of all of his students.  He knows when they are on YouTube or Facebook or playing games when they are supposed to be doing their work.  He can even take control of the students’ computers from his desk.  He is kind of like a hacker spy!

Then I got to see one of the computers that the students use.


I like computers and Mr. Guy has taught me a lot, but I don’t know if I would like them if I couldn’t look at Facebook or work on my blog.  Mr. Guy said that he teaches his students to use the computer for “professional” things like writing letters, making spreadsheets, and creating data bases.  I don’t know what those things are, but writing about my adventures on my blog sounds like more fun than any of those things.  Mr. Guy says that that means that I like the humanities rather than STEM subjects.  I guess figuring that out is the kind of thing they taught him in all of his meetings this week.

Yep, computers are for writing.  I now know where all of the letters are on the keyboard.  I’m not sure where they go in all of the words I want to type, but I will figure that out.  And if not, I have just discovered Spellcheck.  It puts all of the letters in my words in the right order.  It is magic!


Mr. Guy has lots of computers in his classroom.


I asked Mr. Guy if I could come to school with him and be in his classes.   I don’t really want to learn about spreading data and base sheets or whatever is that he is teaching about, but I am going to miss everybody when they go back to school.  The dogs, cat, and I are going to be at home watching HGTV and talk shows five days a week.  There is only so much of that that a little furry blue and orange monster can take.  And the dogs are not very good about fixing me lunch.  I’m sure that we will all adjust.

On our way out of the school, I saw a sign in the hallway.  Mr. Guy said it is the rules that the students need to follow when they are walking in the halls.  Boy do schools have A LOT of rules!  


I understand the one about listening to adults.  I know that you are supposed to do that even when you don’t like what they are saying.  And it makes sense that since you are inside the school that you should use an “inside” voice.  But, some of these rules don’t make any sense to me.  Slow down?  Is there a speed limit in the hall?  Does everyone have to go slower than they want to go?

Hold to the right.  Hmm.  Mr. Guy always carries me over his left shoulder.  Does that mean when I go to school with him he has to carry me on his right shoulder?  Or that I have to walk beside him and I have to hold his right hand?  But if I hold his right hand, it will be with my left hand.  Maybe he is supposed to hold my right hand with his left hand.  So many things to worry about!

And “Exhibit catch and release.”  How do they having fishing in the halls?  There isn’t even any water!  When I was in North Carolina, people would catch fish and then release them back into the pond.  What kind of fish live out of water?  Maybe you have to slow down so that you can catch the fish.  And use an inside voice so that you don’t scare the fish.  Once you catch them,  you have to clean them.  “Display cleanliness.” Now I get it!  But wait.  You are suppose to catch and release them so you can’t clean them.  Oh, I am so confused.  

I think maybe watching The View and Love It Or List It all day is more my speed!

Good luck to all of you teachers and students as you start a new school year!