New Furniture and New Tricks

Moving into a bigger home has really been exciting. We are loving having so much space, except when we lose our cell phones. It has also, however, kinda forced us to bite the bit (is that the right phrase??) and make some hefty furniture purchases. Now, let me assure you, these decisions were not made in haste. My Dameon can definitely whip out his "official furniture inspector" badge whenever he deems appropriate. Now, me, I'm usually not a very good decision-maker when it comes to home decor. I like to kinda get my feet wet and then sleep on it awhile. For some reason in this latest venture Dameon decided to take that mentality to the extreme. Even to the point that I was the one shouting "UNCLE!" Our search for a dining room table literally spanned the length of 4 months. The search for the couch seemed almost as torturous since we went on a whirlwind tour of about 11 furniture stores in three days. And, it never failed, every sofa, loveseat, table, chair, or ottoman that I even batted an eye at had to undergo Dameon's "Is it sturdy?" test. Keep in mind that he has muscles capable of bench pressing ME, so he's able to make anything wobble. Phew! We finally found something we both felt good about! And, while I'm giving him a hard time in this little write-up, how can I honestly complain about a guy who just wants to make sure we're getting the most for our money? We are super happy with the way our home is coming together.

In other news, we continue to own the cutest puppy in the world. While we come to realize Rufus' pint-sized frame really can't manage to balance while learning "shake" (dang it!) we HAVE realized that's it's not too late to help him with his manners. He does really well with the barking/yipping thing, but he is not so good with the jumping up on new people thing. Believe it or not, it's all our fault. We think it's absolutely adorable when we sit on the couch and he leaps up at our face with his tounge going a million miles an hour. Visitors, however, do not. We can no longer reward this behavior by giving him attention, so the idea is to ignore him when he does this and praise him when he sits. In the end, hopefully sitting becomes his default mode. So far, he's really catching on and he find him sitting a lot more. This results in over-the-top praise, which makes him run wild hot laps all throughout the house. So cute! Okay, now I'm going to attempt to post some pics. I have yet to learn how to paste them throughout my text. (Thanks for the attempted help, Annie, but I couldn't crack the code.) You'll still get the gist, though. Dining room table, new basement couch, Rufus showing nice manners. :) *And by the way, Dameon had to sit/lay on the floor for like 5 hours last night assembling the table and chairs. What an awesome hubby!!