Cold, knees,dogs and kids

We are just now starting to get the cold winter weather that is normal for Michigan; the last two years have had strange weather patterns that have the weather outside of the norm.  I have bad knees and the cold weather is starting to have the agonizing effects on them.  I run the stairs at the house a hundred times a day and some days that can be plural.  With the agony of doing stairs with crappy knees makes me start thinking outside the box, making 5 trips into one, that sort of thing. I start yelling upstairs to the girls and even make them run the stairs for me. Now I can only get away with them running the stairs for me, just so far before they call me on it.  I really try to save those times for total emergency running.  Hey I need coffee…… 

Last night I had to take a nap before I could catch my second wind and get things done; now I truly did not think I would take a three hour nap but it is what it is.  It’s now 9:30 PM and I am getting into high gear and do not want to be bothered when I hear rustling going on in the kitchen. The girls are? Who knows where, and the dogs are free; so up the stairs I go to find out who is in the kitchen.   Damn dogs are on the counter so I chase them out of the kitchen and shut them in the living room.  Back down the stairs to just get comfy in the chair when I hear Archie screaming because he is lost in the living room and wants to go into the kitchen. Blind old dogs are very demanding when the want something.  I pick up the speed a little because he could be more than lost in the living room as his cries get more desperate.  I get into the living room and he has gotten stuck between the chair legs and cannot figure out how to get out. He keeps bumping one leg and turning and bumping another so this totally confuses him and sets him into panic mode screaming.  I freed him from his chair leg incarceration and go back down the stairs now the limp has taken over. I am down there just long enough to get back into the swing of things when I hear more rustling going on in the kitchen. I am in no mood to run the stairs so I yell out “are there kids in the kitchen or dogs”?  The reply comes back sarcastic “it is your daughter not your dog” Okay now that got a laugh out of me.  A short time later the sound starts again, “are there kids in the kitchen or dogs”?  Ma, what the hell, It’s me!  I yell back “I don’t want to keep running up the stairs so can you guys stop eating for the night”.  Now it’s late and I hear the sound one more time but I resist the temptation to yell again, when I hear, Ma your dogs are in the kitchen. Well I guess I am done working tonight, I just need to get the damn dogs and go to bed.