I Must Ask . . . Do You Make Your Bed?

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. –Erma Bombeck

Last week's question was about pets. I set up the initial poll wrong and so some votes were deleted because I decided it was more important to fix the poll than to keep the votes. I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings. It looks like dogs are by far the most popular pets. It only makes sense, since they are man's best friend.

I asked for pet stories and promised to share the best one. Well, I can never just choose one of anything, so I have three. I'll start with P., who told about one of the pets she had when her daughter lived at home. She said, I taught my parakeet Penny to wolf whistle and cluck like a chicken, and she also made this other noise I didn't recognize at first, until it occurred to me that it was the sound of my own laughter. Love it! Thanks for sharing, P.

My cute sister Jill, stopped by to tell about her pets. Here's what she had to say, We have two pets. It all started with a red betta fish named Billy. The Student Body President at the local high school thought it would be great to get the boys a fish. But then, Billy died. I think we didn't treat the water with all the right stuff. We had one water additive, but apparently we needed another. So we went to WM and got a pair of goldfish. See, both boys needed to pick one. We named one Alexander (Alex) and the other was Leah (after the signing time kids). But, as gold fish are "disposable" pets, Leah died and now we just have Alex.

Last summer, we decided that we'd like to add another family member. So we started looking online for Beagles who were in need of adoption. We found Lizzie. She'd been at the Humane Society for 3 months, and she was 8 years old. Her time was up. I couldn't leave her there. So we sent an e-mail and asked about her personality. They told us to bring the whole family down, to see how she does with the kids. I could not have picked a milder dog. She is so sweet and old. And we love her. We've had her a year now, and I know it's a year she might not have had if we didn't look for her when we did.

Plus, I know she's the best security system we could ever have. We had a kid come into our house at night (with our permission) who was not a family member. Lizzie went NUTS. She scared that kid so bad, and her barking and growling scared me out of my sleep, too. I can't imagine our house without her. Can you tell we're related .

And the last story is from me. I told you about our pair of fire-bellied toads named Pants. What I didn't tell you is that once upon a time we also had a dog. He was a black lab, the runt of the litter. So we named him Piccolo. We should have named him Sirius Black, because he wasn't runty for very long. The top photo is the day we brought him home. Oh, he was a cute little puppy. The bottom photo was two months and 11 days later and he was already bigger and weighed more than the then 5 year-old Grasshopper.

Piccolo chewed like crazy. I spent a minimum of $20 an month on rawhide for him to chew to keep him from chewing up the house. It only worked sometimes. Ever see Marley & Me? Remember the part where he chews a hole through the drywall? It was like that at our house too. We can only guess that he was trying to make his own doggie door, because it was in the wall right next to the back door and he chewed right through to the plywood that backs up to the brick on the exterior.

He was a beautiful dog, but he was a big {80+ pounds} and rambunctious puppy. He was too big for our little house and our little yard and our little family. So we gave him to a family on a farm. Seriously. That's not a euphemism. We felt it was our responsibility to find a new family for him and the people who took him actually lived on a farm.

Well, enough rambling about pets gone by. On to business. Beds. To make or not to make? That is the question. Growing up, that was one of our regular chores; make the bed every day. My mom's bed is always made. My grandma's bed was always made. And mine used to be made every day. But it isn't anymore. I was almost 16 when I dropped the habit and about the only time I make the bed now is if I'm changing the sheets. Oh, I straighten the covers every night before I get in, but I don't really make it. Do I feel bad about that? Nope. Not one bit. That is one un-done chore I have zero guilt about.

I was thinking about whether or not I should change my ways when it comes to bed-making while I was thinking out this post. And I decided that it is one thing that I don't really need to worry about right now. Mr. Bug sleeps during the day and I sleep during the night, so the bed would have to be made twice a day and would only stay made for a few hours after each making, and that is just one thing that is not high on my list of priorities right now. How about you? I must ask . . . do you make your bed?