Today was excellent. Well, let me preface that by saying last night was awful. We moved Dende back upstairs to the bathroom next to our room because with Christmas tree took up too much room for his kennel to stay downstairs. He had been doing great for a couple of days. I was starting to think “Yes, he’s finally cured of whatever craziness he had before!”. But then two nights ago he whimpered. You know, that really high-pitched-make-you-crazy-because-you-can-just-barely-hear-it-but-it-still-wakes-you-up kind of whimper. So Tim, being the wonderful husband that he is, got up and let Dende outside. Sure enough he had to go to the bathroom really bad. But now he’s got it in his head that he can get out by whimpering. So, last night Tim took him out to relieve himself just before putting him in his kennel, so we KNEW he didn’t have to go… and he proceeded to whimper and pant loudly for almost 4 hours. Yup. Four hours of lying in bed stewing over how angry I was, and then every once in a while yelling at him. And then it passed the point of putting him downstairs, because it was a matter of principle. I was NOT going to open his kennel, because I knew he was just being a butt. So, we just endured it. And today Dende was VERY tired. We made a conscious effort to keep him awake and not let him get too cozy anywhere so that we are 100% sure he will be tired enough to sleep tonight. We’ll see. I haven’t given up on this yet. But we might put him downstairs for tonight just so we can sleep!
So, back to today. It was great. Tim even let me take a nice nap after lunch (which I needed badly!) and he watched the Vikings win by a lot. So we were all happy campers. He even rented a DVD which is really rare. In fact I can’t remember the last time we rented a movie… Anyway it was “Date Night.” We both really like Steve Carell and Tina Fey and the previews looked hilarious. And it was funny, albeit a little raunchy and predictable. I’m glad we rented it first instead of just buying it.
I also spent a little more time finishing up the candy bags. It feels good to have that huge burden off my shoulders. And I love doing it. It’s hard for me to remember that when it’s 10:30 at night and everything on me aches, but earlier in the day I was having a dandy time. It really does bring out my inner “candy-shop-owner” wanna be. 🙂 I roughly added up the amount of candy I made this year just for curiosity sake. I estimate I made about 1350 pieces of candy. Chloe was quite good about the candy and only once grabbed one off of the table. Here’s a picture of her helping me put the stickers on all the bags…
Here are some pictures I took last year–but everything looked the same again this year… which is why I didn’t bother taking new pictures! 
Good job!
Sherlock has taken to whining when we put him on the porch at night. I know how frustrating that can be. He doesn’t keep it up as long.