Wildlife

As I was sitting here I noticed this cute little lizard on my window. Yay!! I love cute little lizards!

The other night there was a big frog in our garage. I hope it didn't get fumigated.

Then this morning after the flooding there were worms and a big frog on our patio. The dogs had to pee so I let Marcy out as the warning dog so the frog would leave. It's not like she could even see the frog, much less catch it. It was a silly frog, and instead of dashing, it hid behind the dog bed that's on the patio. Nobody caught it, though, thank goodness.

Dog Tags!

Guys, I totally got dog tags for $4 each today, with no shipping costs. So excited, because they are the nice sterling ones that include name, address and phone number (so just in case any of the neighbors don't know our dogs/frantic screams/cars by heart now, they at least have an address and phone number to get the dog back to if one gets out). We also put a huge padlock on our gate latch, and nailed the weird random board with the hinge shut this weekend after a neighbor kid came by, played with it, and let Lily out!

We did get Lily back. The neighbors saw what happened, chased the other dogs back into the fence and shut it, then chased Lily down. We knew she was gone within a minute or so, met the neighbors outside, and they told Jeff that the kids are opening the fence, not the utility men like we suspected. I was really scared to find Lily missing and the fence shut. I thought someone had stolen her! We don't really live in the kind of neighborhood where you'd expect that to happen, but you never know... Mandy's story from a few months ago scared the s### out of me.

Anyway, all is well. Everyone is LOCKED in and we're now a safe and secure dog yard again. I really thought we had dealt with everything after the first time by calling the utilities and such, but who knew our culprit was a child? According to the neighbors this has not been isolated to our gate, either. Well, unless we have a kid in the neighborhood who can remove nails, break down boards or bust/pick locks we are in good shape... and fortunately I think our culprit has just been a young, curious kid with bad parents. You know, the kind who goes out with no supervision and thinks "Wow, let's go to the house with the cute dogs in the backyard and open the gate." In fact, I am wondering if our culprit happens to be the girl who we found cuddling Marcy in our front yard the last time the dogs got out. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it will not be happening again. Our backyard is on lock down. And our pooches have ID tags!

"I think this is my last day."

Yes, these are the words I said when I walked into work this morning.

Everyone close to me knows that I've been "done" with my job for a long time now. It used to be a pretty cool company to work for, with lots of opportunity. Lately it's been an unfriendly work environment, completely demotivational, and on top of that our product is no longer competitive with what others are offering. My base income has been slashed to the point of being completely replaceable as our clients get taken away by competitors because we have either bad pricing, or rude and clueless customer service staff at our help desk. Done. D. O. N. E. Done.

Since I am venting, I might also mention that fact that I have never felt very appreciated there. My decision was solidified today when dealing with the cashing in of my stock options. I ran a top 3 office for them my first year managing Tacoma. This means that my office was one of the 3 most productive for an entire year. A few months later I was issued stock options with a select group of people. It seemed like I was finally being rewarded for proving myself after years of being told I was too timid/young/female to give a management position to. Today I found out that I received the smallest number of options in that group. Smallest BY FAR. Today I also gave my resignation to the guy who replaced me a few months into my role as the Houston manager, because I could never seem to make the lofty sales quota they gave to the Houston office. My replacement has never hit his quota, either (and actually turns in about the same numbers that I did... some months even less), yet he still sits in that chair almost 3 years later. Is it because he is a guy's guy and can guzzle beers with the rest of the boys?

Sour grapes aside, their lack of belief in me gave me a very easy out. I am now officially a kept woman. Staying at home, taking care of the teenagers, doing a bit of coursework at the local U, and appreciating my wonderful husband to be who pays my way in life.

Or am I?

In real life, everyone, I started my own business last week. I will be doing the exact same thing as I was before... but I keep all the profit. I call the shots. No more silly trackers explaining how I spend my time. No more grief about making quotas. No more pressure to lie to customers about pricing in order to make the sale (which I refuse to do). No more workshops given to me by people who I trained. No more politics. No more BS at all, in fact.

I don't want any trouble. I am not going for their clients. I just want to sit in my little office and build my customer base. Eventually Jeff will be able to join me full time (he is AMAZING at sales), and I hope that we'll have something BIG. If we want. If we decide we just want to do what we can do on our own, and have no employees, that is totally cool, too. The point is, there are choices now. The point is also that I no longer have to do all the work, fix people's mistakes, and be the face of the company while getting paid 25% of the profit just because someone else had the balls to go open an LLC and hire a payroll company to cut me a check.

I'm pretty damn happy. I haven't had a plan in a long time, and this is a good one. More to come as things unfold.

And I know, I really need to get more of the house pictures up, but as you can see, it's been a busy week!

Our House Part 1... the living room

Looking towards the door that leads to the backyard

View from the kitchen

Another view from the kitchen. The baby gated door leads out to the entry.

The nook by the fireplace is perfect for crates, until Jeff builds his built in shelving unit.

View from the baby gated door. You can see the kitchen and door leading to backyard.

Our house, is a very very very fine house, with 6 dogs in the yard...

Each day I think I'll show you guys a different room. This is the living room where we spend most of our time. The dogs are allowed in here, and here only. I just keep the floors mopped and vacuumed so Jeff doesn"t die from allergies. The dogs aren't allowed on the furniture, so everyone has a crate inside for bed time. It seems to be a good compromise and works out well. We just put the laminate flooring in, so that helps a lot with keeping the hair up. The crates have proven to be a good thing, also, because with everyone crating at night (not just baddawgs) everyone is pretty equal and there's not as much jockeying for position.

This is the biggest room in the house, and we have a little section to watch TV (and we also keep that wall empty so we can use the projector in here for movies), then keep the back of the room fairly empty so everyone can get around without falling over each other (dogs included). The crates fit nicely along the walls and in the nook so we don't feel like we're living in a dog boarding facility. It gives us a lot of room and feels really nice. It's dark so I can't get pictures of the outside today, but the 3 huge windows to the left of the couches look out onto the giant patio. If we ever have guests who aren't dog people, the patio is almost like another room (just outside) and even has fans on the ceiling. I just pull the blinds open and the dogs can sit out there and still see us and feel like they're a part of things.

I absolutely LOVE this house, and am so excited to show you guys the rest of it. Hopefully I'll keep up and truly get a room a day up here on the blog.

Marcy is ooooooold!

I am starting to get paranoid about the Marfster's age. She is definitely OLD. She sleeps an awful lot these days, and she gave me a horrible scare the other day. She, Bud, and Cosmo were outside frolicking, and when I went to call them in she didn't come. Sometimes she doesn't hear well (um, like I said, OLD) so I went back to the corner of the yard she favors to go round her up. When I walked around the corner she was laying limp in the sunshine, limp like I have only seen a dead dog lay. I screamed "Bunny!" and she shot up fast because I obviously scared the hell out of her! Serves her right- she scared the hell out of me worse!

Other things poor Bunny does: When you call her she looks around because she has no idea where the sound is coming from. She sometimes gets lost in the yard (cataracts). The other day she went into the planting bed and got stuck, or lost, or something. I had to go get her out and bring her in the house. All day long she just sleeps DEEPLY by me as I work at the computer. She sleeps more and more soundly. I told Traci the other day that I actually had a really bad dream this week about waking up in the morning and finding that she had died in the night!

Maybe it's the 11th birthday tripping me out. Or the deep, deep sleeps and the back yard "dead dawg" scare. At least she is very happy, though, and according to her last vet visit extremely healthy and in great shape for her age. She's the same old jolly, bouncy Bunny. Just freakin' me out a bit lately.

More Lucy Info

So, first, I have to tell everyone about my new friends. One of Jeff's very good friends, Daniel, is engaged to a vet tech, Lui. I am happy because they are over often, and are both extremely nice people and fun to hang out with. It's cool to have a couple friends who actually really like my dogs, because some people come over and we have to leave the dogs outside the whole time. Daniel and Lui are really awesome people, though, and they bring the dogs treats and don't mind them hanging out with us when we're eating dinner or watching a movie.

One thing I did not expect from having a vet tech friend were the awesome animal perks that she freely offered once she saw how many dang mongrels I have. Lui made us enough heartworm mixture to last more than a year, which is amazing. She can also order medications, or pretty much anything animal oriented, at cost.

Anyway, I didn't realize that Lui works at a specialty clinic that does neurology. There are some crazy things that are readily available in Houston, and there are plenty of people here who will apparently spend upwards of $20k fixing up their dogs when they get hurt. Anyway, she saw me popping a rimadyl into a very cranky Lucy when she was over a couple weeks ago, and started asking questions. Last week she called and said if I could bring Lucy in today, one of the residents would take a look and give her a neurological exam. Obviously I can't afford to do back surgery on my dog, but she thought having a more difinitive answer on things would help in knowing which meds to work with, etc.

It was a really cool exam, I have never seen anything like it at the regular vet. All the things you would expect- checking to see if they focus their eyes- and also some things I have seen Mandy do with Marcy to see if her nerves were damaged. The vet flipped Lucy's feet over one by one. fronts were fine, back right she took a long pause before correcting her foot and setting it down on the pad. Her back left she never did correct, she just stood there with the top of her foot facing down. She said without the MRI and stuff it would not be 100% difinitive, but she is very sure it is degenerative disc disease. That's already been brought up as a probability to me... I really am starting to think that Mandy DOES know everything about dogs... but this just solidified it for me.

What does this mean? Well, I guess it gives me some peace of mind feeling like I know what I am dealing with rather than guessing. I really cannot justify a $5000 surgery and a dog with staples up her spine for a couple weeks, and a long recovery time. I think I can justify buying some tramadol and rimadyl at cost and making her feel as good as she can feel for a while, and continuing to be cautious with her around the other dogs. She's been enjoying herself here in Texas, with nice weather and a big yard. She runs around and plays a lot. They say to keep her crate rested a lot of the time, but where is the joy in that? Part of me just wants to let her enjoy her doggy life to the fullest and if she wrecks her back completely then it will be her time. Going down her spine today the vet found 2 spots that are painful for her, when a couple months ago she just had one spot.

Anyway, it was really nice of Lui to get us in for the exam and it does help to know what we're dealing with and having a stock of pain meds to deal with it. Honestly, having doggy pain meds around is wonderful. There are days where Marcy is having a rough time and I pop a quarter rimadyl down her throat and her day gets a lot better very quickly.

Dawg Stuff

So, first of all, we have decided that Lily must be mixed with Vizsla. Many people have said to me that she looks like one, minus the floppy ears- hers are shorter than this. Still, look at the resemblance, below:

As if that is not enough, Jeff googled Vizslas last night because yet another person told us she looked like one, and the breed descriptions said some interesting things. Counter surfer... check. Obsessively bonded to their people... check. Pushy for affection... check. Panics when they cannot be near you... check. Enjoys sleeping buried completely under the covers by your feet... check. does not behave unless they get at least 30 minutes of excercise every day... check. There were more, but for some reason my internet is freaking out so I can't copy and paste the breed description from another window. These are the standouts, though, and enough to make me to "OMG, I have a Vizsla mix" because she fit the breed description to a T. At least it helps me to understand her needs a little better. I can be quite thick at times, so having it laid out for me like this was a good thing. I am going to try to work within the description and see if I can be a better home for her.

Happy Birthday Marcy/Bunny!

Ok, it is a bit belated. I am a horrible dog mom. I knew it was this week, but I had to ask Mandy the exact date, and to my horror she said it was the 8th and I missed it. Bunny is 11 years old now, and the brood will be celebrating with some hamburger in their kibble this weekend. It's prefectly acceptable to have a birthday party the weekend after one's birthday, is it not?

I may skip the frosting bananas for the sake of all our waistlines.

Either way,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUNNY!!!

Puppy Behavior: The Art of the 5 Mile Walk

Jeff and I have been walking, and we decided that we should probably start taking along our puppy, Miss B. Haven... ok, actually it is Lily... for some much needed leash training. She's been on a 5 mile walk twice this week (with a rest day in between) and she is either a fast learner, tuckered out, or both! Tonight she was perfect on the leash aside from a couple minor slip ups that involved trying to chase icky suburban toy breeds. Other than that she was right next to me, on my left side, the entire time. I even let the leash go a bit slack the last half of the walk! She also hasn't stolen food off the counter or been a general pest since we've started walking her. All these months of torment, and walking was the secret!

We tried taking Cosmo on a shorter 3 mile walk for exercise, and he did really well until his tongue started dragging on the pavement. Ok, not literally. Cosmo might need to start building his endurance slowly. He is a great little walker, though. So well behaved.

Little tid bits

Yesterday I had a big bowl of chicken soup I couldn't finish, so I told Jeff to go ahead and pick a dog to bring in the kitchen to finish off the nice warm bowl for me. Who does he pick? Of course... his favorite dog daughter:

Very pleased with her big bowl of soup. No worries, it is low in fat content.

Having trouble finishing, BIG brother Cosmo came in to help out shortly after this.

Also, yesterday Jeff brought me my Valentine's present. No need to go look at your calendars, it is April. Jeff just didn't want to ship it, and kept forgetting to bring it over. I was so excited when I finally opened it, because it is just what I have been wanting for about a year now...

I know, I am a big dork.

So we had waffles and eggs for dinner last night. Desirea and I used to stay at the Marriott when we would go anywhere because she worked there and got a killer discount, and I always loved the Texas shaped waffle irons that they had in the breakfast area in the mornings. Awesome!

And Then There Was Love...

There's nothing like a Corgi to melt a heart. Jeff has ardent love for little miss Marcy/Bunny. In fact, I think he's head over heels. He asked last night how hard it would be to get a Corgi exactly like her someday... same size, same temperament... because she is perfect. Once our dog numbers naturally deplete in a couple years, of course. No worries, Jeff... many a good man has fallen for a Corgi. Right, Henry?

Bunny can be found at Jeff's feet when we watch TV getting lots of love and affection. When she got out the other day he actually picked her up and carried her back in, despite his allergies to all things fluffy. If this love affair goes on, I won't be surprised to see him chipping the tartar off her back teeth in a few months (our vet in Vancouver said this was a good job for husbands, everyone).

In other news, thank goodness I work from home and am not eating out as much as I used to, because getting a decent dog food around here is expensive! Cosmo has settled into By Nature's Salmon and Yogurt and the others are trying out Nutro Chicken and Oatmeal because I couldn't find their regular, less expensive Nutro here. I got out of Pet Smart last night for no less than $40, and Cosmo's food just came in a little 8lb bag. I found a feed store a few miles away that carries the big dogs' food... hopefully that place will be a bit cheaper than Pet Smart.

Flea Control, The Great Escape, Bald Corgis, etc.

Rub a dub dub, it's Cosmo in the tub! Waiting his 5 minutes for the flea shampoo to sit. I tried to tell him it's not so bad, I have to sit and wait 20 minutes when I color my hair!

I like this picture because you can see our girl's nice figure when she is all wetted down.

A happy bather. Is this dog ever unhappy?

Bud says "I'm outta here!" That would be my knee up by his face, acting as a road block.

Now that we're mostly settled in I think I can start keeping up with the blog again. I've been reading everyone's blog on the run to keep up, but not posting any of my own. I'd love to post some house pics, but it's not quite where I want it to be yet. We have a lot of space to be decorated and a lot of walls to paint! The big project right now is the living room floor, which had to be ripped up because it was disgusting. Also see the flea control paragraph for more carpet info. We're putting in laminate, which is on order and should be here in about a week. It will take roughly a day to put in, and after that I am planning to let the house pictures fly. Until then it looks a bit crazy!

Jeff found a good deal on a projector last week, which I was a bit skeptical about until he plugged Twilight into it and I got to watch my favorite movie of the moment, movie theater size on our living room wall. I never realized the waitress in the dinner scene had a tattoo on her boob before! Not that I'm terribly excited about her boob tattoo, just that the picture was SO BIG you could see all the little details.

So, the owners before us had a dog, and I am pretty disgusted by the state of the house. The living room carpet had a lot of pee spots on the floor, and was making even me allergic. The dog run where they kept the dog was overflowing with poop and the grass was super tall. Then... we saw them... FLEAS! It has been a good 7 years since I've seen a flea on one of my dogs, so I was pretty appauled when my cousin said a flea jumped off Cosmo onto his arm. Ack! Step 1 was to mow the tall grass, as well as the rest of the yard, and spray the crap out of it. Step 2 was to tear up the nasty carpet.... which I did in haste so we've been living on concrete in our living room for the past 2 weeks (but it's better than dog pee and fleas). Step 3 was yesterday, all 5 dogs getting flea baths. I didn't get a single flea off any of the dogs. I hope that is because they don't have them, and not because I used the sissy oatmeal flea shampoo because Cosmo is allergic to the more chemical stuff. I went outside and mowed again yesterday before doggy bath time, then sprayed again, and got a flea on my leg while I was outside. I guess they are in the yard. The dogs now have that flea stuff that goes on their necks just in case, so hopefully things will be ok. Cosmo got the organic stuff and stinks like peppermint and lemongrass. He's very offended. I'm going to have to stay on top of this.

Last night Jeff was walking through the living room, looked out the front window, and I heard him say "Bunny..." and of course went running to the front of the house because not only was he at the wrong window for a Bunny sighting, but was already out the front door. It could only mean one thing: dog escape. As I got there he was carrying Marcy/Bunny into the house from where she had been in the front yard chilling and getting loves from the neighbor girl. The the little girl said "The red one and the white one went that way" and pointed down the street heading out of the neighborhood. Lucy and Lily. Jeff went and secured the gate, as I went running down the street. I really need to get into better shape if I am going to be chasing dogs down the street.

First, how they got out is ridiculous... we discovered that there is one board on our fence that has a latch on it, and it swings open. ONE BOARD. Someone apparently came by and opened it (probably one of the utility people thinking it was the real gate), and the dogs came out. My pet peeve on this house is that we have 2 gates, and the meters are in the backyard so we are unable to keep locks on the gates. We are pretty good about checking them to make sure they are shut, but who knew there was a board that swung open with a latch?!

Anyway, back to the chase. The nice thing about Texas is the weather is nice year round, so people are always outside. As I ran down the street, neighbors pointed out the direction the dogs had gone. Jeff followed me in the car. We had a hard time finding them because we live in a huge subdivision, and I was really worried about the fact that 2 of them had gotten out and I wasn't sure this particular pair would stay together. So we drove back to the house and got my car, and our phones so we could call if one of us caught them, and went out again. My first trip around the neighborhood Lucy saw the car and came running. I opened the back door and she hopped in, and peed herself (as well she should, baddog!). Then fortunately another neighbor drove up behind me to say they had caught Lily and had her at their house. Crisis averted. Today I am going to Petsmart to patronize the little machine that makes instant dog dogs. Thank goodness the Corgis are microchipped, but I think in this particular neighborhood a tag with our address and phone numbers will land them back at our front door pronto if this ever happens again. I am actually going to call the utility company as well and see if it's possible to put a combination lock on our gate if we give them the combo to it. I know everyone's had a dog escape, but doesn't it make you feel awful when it happens? Fortunately they got back safe and sound, and the boys were either too well behaved or too fat to get out of the gate with the girls.

The Corgis are bald. I don't get up a bit of dog hair when I vacuum, and nobody lost any hair at all during or after bath time yesterday. I guess it's the weather. It is really nice! I can actually see Marcy/Bunny's skin if I lift up her top layer of hair. Amazing!

Cosmo ate a watermelon yesterday. Pictures to come. It was so cute, I had to hold it for him, and he nibbled it from one end to the other. He's such an awesome dog.

Bud and I went jogging this morning, which was nice. I think Cosmo and I will go tonight. I feel like it's a bit of a lost cause since I am so far gone, but I really would like to get back into shape. The boy dogs are good companions and the weather is perfect right now, so we may as well give it a shot.

I am working from home, which is awesome (except it is hard to stay on task sometimes). The company wants a little satelite thing going on in the city we bought in, and since I have experience managing they want me to run it. There is no formal office and no quota. It's an interesting setup. Not sure if I am completely in love with the idea, but it will keep me busy and give me something to do besides just sell, which is nice. I am around to take Quinn to school and pick him up, and Lucy and Lily don't have to spend their days crated now, so it's good. For all of my feminist ways, I could really get into staying at home and being a suburban girl. I dread driving into the city, and dread the corporate bull crap even more. If I can make my same income from home... coolness.

Alright, off to start my day!