Getting Things Done at Home

Today was one of those days that knock away several small chores and problems that niggle at you. I took the dog to the vet for his annual check-up and dental cleaning (there goes my life savings!). Since Scooby is a rambunctious Australian shepherd who doesn't realize he's aging, I don't try to handle him on the leash--I park outside, call, and someone from the vet's office comes to get him. Then when I go back, they put him in the car. I love it. Scooby pulled me down twice several years ago and I figure I'm too close to osteoporosis for that, so he gets his exercise chasing squirrels in the back yard. Now, glad to be home, he's sleeping at my feet.
The exterminator came. The house is rat free, and all those flies had nothing to do with a dead rat. They're just a seasonl phenomenon. He offered to spray--it's kind of embarrassing to tell an exterminator that I don't like sprays and I'd just as soon going on swatting flies like Jack the Giant Killer. Besides, their life span is waning, and they're "dying like flies." (Oooh, sorry, couldn't resist!)
And Jim Sharratt, who watches over my lawn and garden and, most of all, sprinkler system came to work on the sprinkler system. He can't get one head to work (right by the redbud tree that looks puny last fall and now I guess we know why). But he's got eveything else about my yard in great shape. And he's calling in reinforcements for that stubborn head. He thinks the roots of a tree we just cut down had grown into the pipe.
I put away laundry and groceries, hung up clothes, unloaded the dishwasher, all those tiny chores that if you don't do them daily pile up into a mess. I kind of came home and dumped things because I was determined to ride the exercise bike. So then I had to clean up behind myself.
A new book arrived today--one that I wrote. The author's copies of Women's Rights in the Global Perspectives Series from Cherry Lake Publishing were by the front door as I left for supper. It's always fun to see the book that was, to me, just typed pages, turn into something with colorful pictures, fancy design, etc. This one was really hard to write--they are issues in international women's rights that are not appropriate for discussion with fourth graders--and I am pleased with the way it came out. I got six copies--shall have to hoard the two I have left after giving one to each child. It pleases me that each of my children has a library of my work, although I suspect many of those libraries are incomplete.
It was almost balmy today but by Friday it will be cold, and I find myself dreading that. Even went to the grocery just in case it snows or ices or something. Ah, Texas!