begin excerpt from Mary's journal:
Last night I mixed 12 pounds of plain baking soda with 2 pounds of Arm & Hammer "Pet Fresh" Carpet and Room Deodorizer. I coated the living room floor and poured it liberally all down the hall (which smelled like a litter box even after shampooing the carpets twice). This morning after some "help" vacuuming it up, I did think it smelled better. The smell lingers mostly near the linen closet and bathroom. Pouring baking soda all over the floor created "dust" on all the furniture and now my glider rocker has a different "gritty" squeak. ("") But worse than that, the "freshness" makes all the bedrooms (which before smelled fine to me) smell stale, and it even seems that Suzan's smells of wet dog.

Last week we closed on a very nice house in the suburbs. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn't as bad as it sounds. People in our neighborhood go for walks (saying "hi" as they pass) and kids playing in their front yards spill out into the street. There are no neighbors behind us, rather an open field that is used by the nearby roundup club for pasturing cattle for their rodeos. Our house is large and open with a patio facing west. The back yard has room for a small garden and a small girl to run around flapping her arms "like a bird." We found the house rather unexpectedly at the end of some bad winter weather (which had discouraged other home shoppers). The owners were being transferred to Kansas City so we had a slight advantage over them I think. They took with them some things we expected them to take: their pets, some curtains and a black ceiling fan. They took some things we did not expect: the refrigerator, the washer, dryer and a magnolia from the front yard. The appliances were theirs by contract; apparently I cannot read properly. They did not reserve the magnolia. A magnolia? They were moving into temporary housing!

In spite of the lingering pet smells (growl, hiss, moan, sob, rage) and the added expense of appliances, I think we will be very happy here. It feels like home already.