Almost killed a dog

So one of my readers laughed at my last comment on the year in review from the previous post:

30. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014.

Don't trust the dogs when you're gone.  

I guess I should have known better.  While Matt and I were at church this morning, Angie ate her way through the wooden gate at the top of the stairs.  I have not been this angry in a very long time.  I would have punched walls had I not wanted to damage them or my fists.  I did slam several doors and kick the broken fence.  I think the last time I was this angry was when I was married so that was about 14 years or so ago.  I stormed out of the house and headed to Target to see if I could find another gate.  My problem is that is has to be metal and fit an awkward space of 37 inches.  I didn't see anything at Target that would work.  I then went over to Petco.  They had a few choices but were really expensive.  one of the gates I looked at was priced at $79 but I found it online at Amazon for less than half that.  I didn't have time to wait for a shipment so I sat in my car and looked at Walmart online.  It showed they had a metal gate in stock at my local store.  I bought it, came home and installed.  I'm getting to be a pro at installing baby gates.  This gate seems to work ok.  It fits better than the first one I had, but the opening is not as wide as the second one that I preferred (before the dog tore it apart.)  It doesn't open very easily - it's more of a two handed job, but at least that means the dogs shouldn't be able to get through it.  Then again, I shouldn't assume anything.  I didn't think Mollie would figure out how to open the the first gate.  

I stayed angry with Angie most of the day.  She knew she was in trouble.  I spent the next few hours in front of the tv goofing off and somewhat napping.  I then focused on cleaning the rest of the bathroom, my closet, and the bedroom.  There's nothing like cleaning as a form of procrastination.  I should be working on stuff for work - like reading some books and doing stuff online, but I'm in a cleaning and organizing kick at the moment.  I went to Walmart yesterday and spent $100 on storage bins.  You should see the bottom cabinet in my bathroom now - it is amazing.  

I know I've been a bad blogger for a while.  I even stopped posting the quick takes weekly.  I won't "resolve" to do better, but I will say that I will try.  I do like it when I can go back and see what has happened over the past year and it's disappointing when I try to figure out something that happened and I don't have a post about it.  

I do like my new chromebook, but I have to go back to posting via blogger's interface instead of using live writer.  So far it's ok, but I guess we'll have to see how it goes.