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As that creepy short lady from Poltergeist would say, "This house ... is clean." I threw away my pitiful excuse for a mop earlier this week, so I got down on the floor and scrubbed the kitchen and dining room floors with a scrub brush, bucket and rag. The floors look great but I look like hell.

We're going to the Puddin'-in-law's for Thanksgiving "dinner" at noon tomorrow and then driving back home to have dinner at our house with my family. This means we aren't responsible for any cooking, only for providing dishes, a kitchen and a dining room for seven adults. We've been doing this for several years now and it works out pretty well.

We still need some staples like drinks and snacks but I think we can handle that very early in the morning or even survive without them. We'll see how brave we're feeling. In my wanderings online to find out store hours, I discovered our local grocery store offers Internet Express Order Ahead Shopping. Maybe after Thanksgiving, I'll give it a try. Rich might not mind going to the grocery store if it's only to pick up items I've already selected and paid for.

water water everywhere

I walked to my parents' this evening and asked Mom, "So, if you get a notice from the water company on your front door, can you pay that online or should you go to the office to guarantee you'll have water on Thanksgiving? You know, just hypothetically." I'm not sure how it happened but I managed to miss paying any water bills since August. Whoops. I knew there was a bill I had way overpaid on and I thought it was the water bill, but it was actually the gas bill. Thankfully, the water company office is on the way to work, so the dog and I will stop by and pay that at 8am. I don't need to risk them turning it off tomorrow afternoon. I would hope they aren't cold-hearted like that, but I'm not going to bet on it. Maybe I should just make all the bills auto-pay themselves.

The water notice was a good kick in the ass for me to sit down and reconcile the bank account for the month. I had been slacking on that and wasn't looking forward to the tedium. But I'm happy to say my bank account online reconciles to my Money account on the computer to the penny.

While sorting those expenses, I discovered that DirecTV had overcharged me by $767.80. They offered to give me a credit for those items on our DirecTV bill, but at that rate I would have pre-paid our account until 2009. I managed to get most of it refunded directly and the rest as a credit, but I'm going to have to check up on them in 7-10 days and make sure it worked.

Ironically, DirecTV is one of the few bills that auto debits from my checking account, so maybe I should rethink that whole auto-pay solution.

this dog is better company than some humans I know

I'm so pleased with Mollie. She is officially one of the best dogs we've ever had. Rich was petting her this evening and the cat was literally walking all over her without so much as a paw in protest. She doesn't even chase the cats anymore but just co-chills with them in the floor.

After Rich left for his hockey game, Mollie and I walked all over the neighborhood for almost an hour! (Damn John and his 10,000 steps. He must be rubbing off on me.) She stayed right by me and I could listen to music while we wandered the streets.

When we got home she curled up with Sarah in the living room so I could surf the web in peace. A few minutes ago she let out this really loud bark at something in our front yard but whatever it was (probably just another dog or the neighbor across the street) wasn't inspired to come any closer.

I got exactly what I wanted - a dog with a bad ass bark but no bite.