I heart my ridiculous Corgis.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Flower Girl Dress Ideas- see comments below pics
This one, below, is my favorite, I think. It even has a cute little jacket (not that they need it in Houston in May!)
This one goes with the style of my dress pretty well, and comes in choc, apple green or ivory:http://www.bestbridalprices.com/little-maiden-flowergirl-dresses-style-3353-p-24715.html?cPath=773#googlebase
This one is a retarded price for a little girl's dress, but a very cute style to look at:
http://www.flowergirldressforless.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=305&Category_Code=usa&Store_Code=Flower-Girl&zmam=24991154&zmas=1&zmac=2&zmap=305
Cute and comes in ivory:
http://www.zone4kids.com/TipTop_Flower_Girl_Dress-5334_Flower_Girl_or_Communion_Dress_by_Tip_Top.html
Also cute, though the back bow is a bit much!
http://www.mysweetdress.com/saaficodr.html
I was just going to send these to Andrea so that she, Holland and Haven could have some extra ideas, but for some reason my email is being cranky about sending it to her address tonight. Soooo... everyone gets to see potential flower girl dresses. I have no particular favorites, though I like some over others, and will be totally happy with whatever they choose. I just had a couple extra hours tonight and had some ideas in mind, so I thought I'd try to be of some help. So everyone have fun and vote if you want, for the dresses you like best. The top dresses are for patterns and the dresses would be some combination of ivory, lime and chocolate. The links are pre-made dresses I found that are nice. For the patterns, click the pics to enlarge.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Stoopid Cute
My babies crashed out on the kitchen floor. Bunny makes a good pillow. They love each other so much!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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!
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!
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!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
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.
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.
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