Lavender Plants and Wiener Spray

I have been wanting to plant lavender in my front yard for a while now. A few different varieties, I think. Imagine - lavender tea, lavender ice cream, lavender sachets.

If I plant lavender in my front yard my house will magically look this good. Right?

Here is another thing I use lavender for in my house. Mix about 20-25 drops into a spray bottle full of water. I like to spray this onto my bed linens about 30 minutes before bed, its so relaxing. That's the more "romantic" use for what I call wiener spray. Wiener spray, you ask? Of my three dogs, two are males and they like to mark around the house (less politely, they like to lift their legs and pee on my stuff). No bueno!! A trainer once told me of the lavender trick and I tried it but it didn't work for me that time. I have now discovered that if I follow the routine every day it actually does work. Even for my stubborn bone-heads. The routine is this: spray the dog's bellies (aka, their wieners) then go around the house and spray everything that they like to pee on. (The idea here is that they will already smell "themselves" and think that they have already marked that area.) In my house this is everything below knee level. So every morning I spray the entire inside perimeter of the house and all of the furniture. Actually its not as time consuming as it seems. Takes me all of about three minutes. Now we are a happy family which includes two dogs who are again allowed to walk freely through the house. And, I can hang draperies again.

Murphy. Do you see that little spot on his bottom lip? Its cat litter. Just because he no longer pees doesn't mean that he isn't still naughty in other ways.....

This is Rusty with his very bad haircut. Yes, I am too cheap to take him somewhere for a real grooming.