The Fun never ends.

I have some new decorating ideas . What do you think?

In the spirit of Simple Living and doing with less, I have condensed the living room and the kitchen into one room. This way we can watch television and eat without getting up or walking . It's a little tight but I think after the initial "getting use to it" period, we will find that we can all live with less sq. footage and our efforts to do this will give us a sense of helping the environment.
Yea! I know. You don't believe this.....but....
I ask you to Google "Tiny Houses" and see what others are doing to live smaller. At least I'm trying.
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The truth is that we are having the rugs cleaned today at 1:00 p.m. and everything had to be off this rug so a guy can come out and beat the old rug to death with soap and water, in hopes that he can restore it for another year.

Poor rug is getting old. Each time it gets cleaned I think that this will be the cleaning that will finally destroy the last standing fibers and the whole rug will say "I give." and fall into long shreds of defeat. We never move the piano or the glass front bookcase so the rug under those two pieces is really good but the rest, after 13 years of dogs that "live in", is pretty well depleted.
I keep saying that this will be the last effort. That I won't clean it one more time. I WANT NEW CARPET. Then I think about the incident that precipitated this cleaning event.
Cutter ate something he thought was wonderful outside and promptly came in and decided it wasn't so great. He left it all over the middle of the carpet. Then when it rained last week, he decided that he just couldn't go outside to do his duty. It was just too scary for him out there. And then Carl, my wonder dog, ate the same irresistible "whatever" that Cutter ate and lost it on the rug too.
I have been through this before. Cutter is our 5th dog here. So I shouldn't get so upset. Cleaning up throw-up and other body functions is our middle name around here. Puppies and old dogs don't seem to appreciate my efforts to maintain a lovely house while living on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness Brownie hasn't won the "Why can't I sleep in the house?" argument or I'd be cleaning up little round balls of Goat scat to. That's were I draw the line.
I'm thinking that maybe new carpet is not the answer. Maybe I should look into these new laminate  or engineered wood floors. They would be easier to clean and the living room wouldn't look like a map of our odd, obsessive-compulsive desire to live with dogs.
Anyway, the house will be a mess for a few days. I'm not going to have the carpet in the guestroom cleaned. ...

It's the dog's domain this week and where would we put all this stuff. Please don't call and say your in town and need a place to stay. I might be a bit lacking in hospitality....
Somehow, I don't think I'm ever going to achieve a state of "simple living" in this lifetime.

Chaos Reigned for a Day

I don't usually share photos of my house unless it's in "apple pie" order (that's an old expression that I have never understood.), but I looked at all the living room furniture piled into my kitchen for the day and decided that I would show you, in the spirit of "keeping it real", the mess I had to live with today just so I could have clean carpets. We couldn't even get to the kitchen sink....
After the carpet cleaning guy left, we spent the day OUTSIDE with the dogs because we have carpet in the living room, hallway and both bedrooms and we had to let all this carpeting dry before we could walk on it or move the furniture back in. In addition to moving furniture I pruned bushes, picked some weeds and planted my gourd seedlings. The Prospector and I took turns entertaining the Pupster and taking trips to town..., once to Lowes for decorative bark, once to Taco Bell and Staples.

The carpet is so clean and it smells sooooo good. It's fluffy again and all the spots are gone. I wanted to get new carpet or wood flooring but when it cleans up this well I guess I can wait for a while longer. So..., to celebrate not spending all that money on new carpeting I went down to Staples and bought Photoshop Element 7. It was way cheaper that new carpet and now all I have to do is figure out how to use it. It says It can eliminate "unwanted elements" like power lines and people that didn't say"cheese" etc..., and add wings to my goats if I want too. Wow! Sounds like magical stuff. I wonder if it will clean the dishes that have accumulated all day out in my laundry sink. Probably not...