Hi, all! I returned from and survived my first trip as an official wife, with multiple sets off in-laws, and a nephew's birthday party, and everything.

I have to post a picture of my nephew soon, as he is OMG cute and has a wee curly mohawk (he turned 2 today, and was delightful and cute and polite.)

I got to sign a birthday card "Aunt Erin!" How cool is that?!

I use an assortment of plastic, glass and metal bowls for the 3 stations of pet food and water. I clean out water bowls whenever I refill them, which is more in the summer, but since the animals get dry food (wet food makes the dog hurl, and kitties get tuna about once a month, and THOSE plates are picked up and popped in the dishwasher as soon as the cats devour it), but the food bowls really get washed whenever they look grotty, or when I think of it.

Cat BOXES get scoured with biodegradable citrus cleaner once a month in the driveway, and sprinkled with baking soda every change.

Thanks for the pet dish data...keep it coming if you've got it.

Pet dishes -- Super rinsed the wet food everytime -- wash every few days. Dry - when it gets cloudy looking I wash it. Water dish -- rinsed well, washed when cloudy.

dishes rotate -- glass or ceramic.

bonny, I wish I could take credit, but Frankie has behaved perfectly on leash since day one. He stops automatically when I stop. If he gets too far in front he'll slow down. I wonder what his story is - all the rescue org knows is that he was picked up in another county and no one came looking for him.

Erin, so lovely to hear. Go you, Aunt Erin!

I missed my fall asleep window and/or had too much caffeine today. Feh. Trying again.

We wash the dog bowls, which are stainless steel, once every two weeks or so. The cat bowl maybe less--all the animals get schmancy dry food, so the bowls don't get all that dirty. The outside water bowl gets rinsed out every day and scrubbed once a week or so. The dogs' preferred ALTERNATE water bowl, the toilet, gets scrubbed once a week.

We usually change the cat's wet food dish every day, but we only wash the dry food bowl every two weeks or so. Water bowl gets rinsed and refilled daily, and swapped out whenever it starts to look like it needs it, 'bout the same time as the dry food bowl.

The water bowl and wet food dish are ceramic, the dry food bowl is plastic.

The cat and the dogs all drink out of a large plastic pet bowl, and it gets placed in the dishwasher every time it runs (usually 1x a week).

All of them eat dry and wet food out of various ceramic bowls, and those get washed every other meal.

Oh, bonny. As someone else here said, it was both beautiful and sad to read. {{}}

ION:

Dog bowl: when we had Lou, he was mostly on dry food, and then we hardly ever washed his bowl (mostly rinsed). When we switched to wet food as a result of his treatment, it was every few days if he licked everything, and every time he left some, we cleaned it.

Doctor Who, right? Not my favorite DW, Domenic West

Same thing keeps happen to me with AW (Afghan Whigs) and AU (Alternate Universe).

Are you thinking of "Highway 61 Revisited"? Whole different road, though just as famous in its way since it's the route down into the delta south of the legendary bluesmen.

At first, yes. And then I Googled to confirm my suspicions that there is a Dylan song about Route 66, and Google thought I was right.

Oh wait...

To make things more confusing Bob Dylan has done a cover of the original Route 66 song.

So this is how I got these results.

Also: HELP ME TO DESIGN MY HENNA TATTOO!

Story goes: Well, first, if you aren't familiar with it, it starts here: [link] . I looked and asked around for places in the area to do my tattoo in. Results didn't look promising, to say the least. And then, after seeing some DIY vids, I thought of a way to pull it thought - a way which is much more natural to me. I asked a highly talented friend of mine which is a graphic designer to design me a tattoo for most of the money omnis sent to me (the rest will be used on buying the products). I'll then print and cut it into stencil and ask a friend with a steady hand to paint on me (I just want first to test some black henna on me, to see how it looks like and how long it'll last).

And I want your help with designing it. Hey, it'll be my tribal tattoo thing. As I said, there are all kinds of symbols and paintings I want there: Women in Black symbol, Buffy's B in the font, A bunch of symbols from bands I love, Gallifrey's DW things, birds to begin the craziness, etc.

What do you think should be there? What other things can look cool and profound?

Bonny, I free-feed Jeeves, and he goes through a scoop of kibble about every two days. I have two identical Corningware ramekins that I use as food dishes. When the food runs out, I put one in the dishwasher and put fresh food in the clean dish. For water, he has a Drinkwell fountain. I don't clean that as often as I should, but aim for a complete take-apart-and-scrub wash and filter change once a month.

Well, normally I'd say a tat would be permanent, so it should represent something from within you at the moment. But it's a temp one. So not sure what to say. Me personally, I'd shy away from band logos, lest I feel like a bumper sticker. When I think of Henna, I think of intricate things, along the lines of this: [link] or this [link]

But go with whatever makes you feel good. That's the whole point. If flowers make you feel good, then do flowers. If you want ivy crawling up your arm and over your shoulders, then do that. If you want band logos, to show your loves, then do that. As long as the ink isn't permanent, do what makes you feel good.