Discarders of Norwalk, I salute you

I've determined, with almost scientific accuracy, that the best junk to be had by far lives in small towns. Norwalk is no exception. They held their annual Spring Cleanup Monday and Tuesday, and I spent yesterday morning perusing the curbs in search of interesting trash.

(I have to add, too, that there is just something about roaming the countryside on a beautiful spring day, with all the windows open. If you are ever down in the dumps, hop in your car and go for a ride off the beaten path. It will pick up your spirits, guaranteed. Bike rides are good, too, but sometimes you just need the kind of wind in your hair that you can only get above 45 miles per hour.)

My Norwalk haul:

• One very interestingly woven bamboo chair, in great shape, just faded. I like faded, and it's sitting on my front porch.


• An old wooden box filled with rusty things, old Prohibition-era brown bottles, blue medicine bottles, and one glass bottle shaped like a fish (scales and all). VERY filthly, but nothing steel wool and soap and water couldn't fix.


• A metal gym basket (love those!)


• A nifty slotted organizer which has motivated me to finally rip out the wet bar sink (we're not the wet bar types) and totally renovate the cabinets by the back door to accommodate our family papers. I'm so sick and tired of all of our ephemera (doesn't junk mail sound better as "ephemera"?) landing far outside of its designated basket. I'm not the athletic one in the family, but my aim is the best in the family, oddly enough. This will involve some basic plumbing and a new countertop, since there will be a sink-sized hole in the existing countertop. The cabinet under the sink is HUGE, and I think it needs some pull-outs to organize the kids' craft supplies.


• Wow, I digress!


• A beveled mirror


• A cathedral-shaped window (absolutely TO-DIE-FOR, and I will be cleaning it up and hanging it over the whirlpool tub, after attaching a little shelf for pretty bath things...you know, the kind you look at but never use?)


• An old tilt-out basement window frame, no glass, but three openings. Three kids, three openings. I sense a photo collage...


• Miniature porcelain Christmas angel ornaments (!)...now, this one made me a little sad. I usually don't dig through boxes, but for some reason I stopped at the curb and saw these spilling out. I grabbed my work gloves and, well, went to work. Found a nesting Santa doll (ala those Russian nesting dolls) and a tole-painted rocking horse ornament, too.


• Filing supplies (letter tabs, etc.) for collage along with two basketball clipboards (the kind that you sketch out plays during a game, but, of course, I'll be using them for some collage adventure instead)


• One side of a crib, just for the spindles. Lovely, lovely, LOVELY spindles.


• An old wooden pencil box with latch, painted orange

I only accumulate to the capacity of the Town & Country's storage area, and then I go home. As far as I know, only two more Spring Cleanup days left for the year: westside of Clive and Ankeny. I need to get cracking on some of my projects, at least the deconstruction, to make room for anything else that may be out there, waiting to be rescued and repurposed.

This gives me the opportunity to accumulate weapons, er, TOOLS, as well. I'm entirely freaked out by a recent spate of home invasions and sexual assaults being perpetrated in Waukee and West Des Moines. This crazy dude busts through windows in the middle of the night and attacks young female occupants of the target residence. Most recently, he attacked a sleeping couple in a townhouse right next to the ballpark where Sam plays Little League. He held the man at bay with a knife while he raped the woman.

"Nightstalker", anyone?

Police just announced yesterday that they've linked the suspect to a March rape in Waukee. They have his DNA, so that's a good start. And they mentioned that the Waukee victim was not chosen randomly, but they "refuse to elaborate". That tells me that they're on to someone, which is nothing but good news.

I inherited my "true crime" thing from my Grandma Mary. I would be a decent detective, I like to think. And in all my research (every single episode of "Cold Case Files" counts, right?), I've noticed that crime victims usually aren't pet owners.

I'm not a gun person. I know some women who sleep with kitchen knives under their pillows, but I doubt I would have enough wherewithal to actually wield a knife upon being startled awake by a crazed lunatic. Same goes for being able to reliably aim pepper spray at an attacker.
I'm rather confident Joel would seriously hurt this creep if he happened to choose our house. Heck, I KICKBOX, for crying out loud. I kickbox like a girl, although I bet I could throw a few Chuck Norris-style in self-defense. But I'm taking no chances.
We're getting a dog.

That's right. It's taken uncomfortably close random acts of violence to persuade me that adopting a dog is not such a bad idea after all.

We just started looking, and I'm terrified of puppy mills, so I'm not quite sure where to find a reliable breeder. I really would like to adopt from the Animal Rescue League, and we visited the West Des Moines kennel yesterday. We met Jade, a five-year-old puggle.

When the worker brought him out of his kennel, I got teary-eyed. How cute is that dog?

Joel took the Elizabeth and Sam to meet him yesterday, too. I'm in love with Jade, and the kids would be happy with any dog, no matter what. Joel isn't sold, though. He would like to take the rest of the week to look at other dogs, too. And I can't argue with that.

(Just look at that face, though!)

There's also Trudy, who we haven't met in person, but who is a boxer/husky mix:

Unfortunately, our options at ARL are limited, since most of the dogs are not good with children under the age of seven.

So, the puppy farm. We found a breeder in Eddyville who has chocolate lab puppies available this month:

How could you not love that face? I think Ben and I have a trip to the farm in our near future (like, this morning). My only reservation is how big this cutie-pie will be when she's fully grown. Our neighbors have a golden lab, absolutely precious, but somewhat intimidating. But, hey, isn't that my point entirely? A loving family pet who scares away potential intruders? It's not like it's going to be her lifelong responsibility to ward off danger (we do live in West Des Moines, after all, where the biggest threat to security is usually teenagers throwing toilet paper in your trees).

We're also thinking boxer. Suggestions welcome!