Tuesday, March 20, 2007

KC with Sunny
Two dogs hiding from the kids. Who could blame them....I do the same thing

dogs and boys

Man, I thought I couldn't get things done before. I really have no time now that I have 2 foster dogs and three kids.
The dogs have been good. VERY sweet.
We are still working on the cat issue. Today I played Cesar Millan again, and held the cat for longer and longer periods around them. Finally the male dog just laid down. The other female dog who is normally the shy one just went berserk.
I would love to adopt the boy dog, but the lab nazis want them to be a package deal.
Oh and we've renamed them Sunny and Share.
They don't answer to anything. So these names seemed to be about the best.


Sunday, March 18, 2007

fostering




OK here is our first venture into dog-dome.

We are fostering two yellow labs. As always, it's a long story.
more later when I get my bearings.

Friday, March 16, 2007

the flowering hello



Spring is my new favorite season. I used to love the fall for all of its reasons. But as I get older I find the newness and rebirth of the land inspiring.
This is the view from my bathroom window where a Bradford Pear tree marks the seasons for me. I am always eager to see it bloom, because it reminds me so much of my mom. There are certain flowers and trees that remind me of her, plants that she loved. All of them bloom. So when I see one in all of its glory my heart aches with pleasure, because I know she would have loved to be here to see it with me.
March is a time when my mom would love to come south to visit me. The weather in Georgia is great. March in Ohio is just a pain in the butt. You feel like winter should be ending, it just gets warm enough to tease and then whammo three more inches of snow. And there is plenty of cold rain too. I used to live on a streets lined with dogwood trees and she seemed to come around they time they were in full bloom. She even painted a picture for me of a robin (since my street's name was Robinwood) in a flowering dogwood. It hangs at my front door in honor greeting everyone with the note "Peace to all who enter here."
Although I'm not an expert I don't think the Bradford Pears are named that because they bare fruit, I think it is because of their shape. Anyway they are blooming now, everywhere. Again I get that little achey feeling, because five years ago this month, mom died. I went to stay with her for a while and then came back home. My sister called on a Wednesday to tell me she stopped eating. When we were packing for our trip back north again. I looked out my bathroom window and noticed that the tree was almost ready to bloom. She died on that Saturday. While I was gone, my bathroom tree bloomed and turned green.
Now the trees are blooming again like white heavenly tears reminding me of how much she misses us.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

crazy is as crazy does

You know, I've been around a bit. I've seen the world. I knew there were crazy people out there, thought I met most of them. Thought I was related to a few of them.
Boy was I wrong. There are far more than I thought.

When I went to the coo-coo lady's house out in the country with the pack of wild animals living with her she said, "you know I meet a lot of nuts in this business." She proceeded to tell me about a woman that adopted a cat, "she was NUT and I mean that with a capital N-U-T."

hmm, I thought. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

So I find this dog on craiglist. She is a 1. 5 year old yellow lab/golden retriever. The owner never had her spayed so she had two litters of puppies. A rescuer came in and took the second litter from her and paid to have the dog spayed. The owner wants to give her away now.

I sent her an email inquiring about the dog, that again sounds way too good to be true, she calls me at 11pm last night. Something about the lady sounds really strange.

Now I feel like I have to rescue the dog from her.

I wanted to go get her today. But my hunka wants to go with me. He's worried about us endangering ourselves for the sake of the dog.

She implied that if I do not get the dog, she is going to put her down. All of this because she says she has been diagnosed with the "C word." I think "C word?" what is that.....cooties? crabs? crazy?
clearly the last one

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

crazy ladies

I'm addicted to petfinder.com. I thought this morning that I would NOT look for another dog on that website. But I couldn't make it past 11am.
After my Maggie dog had gone away to two people that are 40 years older than me and clearly faster, I knew I had to let go. The Maggie dog was too good to be true. She had a bump on her nose from a bite she got as a small puppy, and because of that the breeder couldn't sell her. So an elderly man took her and trained her, a lot apparently. She could sit, stay, come, sit and wait to eat on command, sit and wait to be dismissed, fix dinner, iron your shirts and take out the trash. The 84 year-old man went to the hospital, and the dog went to his daughter who turned him over to the lab nazis.
So yesterday, K had a day off of school so I drove the boys to the "country" to an animal shelter that I found out about on petfinder. Fran is the lady that runs this "shelter" from her two bedroom home. Imagine what a little cottage house would look like with 35 cats and about 18 dogs. Imagine the smell.
The tiny puppy that was pictured curled up with a cat is now nine months old and part of a pack of wild dogs. She has had little or no interaction with humans. She came in to see us and coward in the corner.
Needless to say Fran the pet lady is a little coo-coo for cocoa puffs, if you know what I mean. K whispered to me as we left, "Do you think she lives here?"
"Yes," I said. "And I think she loves every minute of it."

Sunday, March 11, 2007

oh woe

My dogs are gone. oh woe
The two dogs that I had picked are gone.....adopted by someone other than me.
I've just boo-hooed to my husband about it. I'm so disappointed.
The lab rescue folks (aka the labrador nazis) said if I wanted to see a specific dog I could make an appointment. If I wanted to meet several of them, I had to wait until the dog adoption day (March 17th). So apparently "two" means "several" nowadays.
I suppose I should have just jumped on one of them, but I would have always wondered what the other one was like.
They were trained, so much of the work had been done on them. One was three years old and more settled.
If I get a puppy it is so much more work, oye.

I'm off to bed. I'm too emotional about this. I've been up since 4am. I had the opposite happen to me with the time change....I actually woke up way earlier than I should have.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

dog obsession

OK so I haven't posted lately because I've been feeding my dog obsession. I spend every free moment reading about dogs and looking for dogs on petfinder.com.
My hunka has been amazed how much time I'm online looking for dogs. He concedes perhaps it is better this way that at least I'm not meeting in chat rooms with other men.
There are two promising dogs. I'm going to meet them on Saturday the 17th.
I have been approved for adoption, which was a real nail biter. I've heard horror stories from friends that were turned down after the home visit. One person had a leather couch and the foster mom thought that would pose a problem. Another person got the "nay" because she didn't have a fence. Small point that she wanted a chihuahua.
My friends indulge me as I talk over every facet of dog ownership.
My biggest concern right now, other than whether or not the dog will be a good match for us, is that my hunka wants to go to Florida for spring break. Doesn't sound like a good time to get a dog right? If I wait until after the break, I'm worried that someone will get that magical dog I have my eye on.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

bye bye binky


I just spent the past four hours or so in my kitchen preparing food that my children would not eat. I did get them to help clean the kitchen though so all is not a loss.
I'm trying to fatten up the oldest boy who is just skin and bones since he's been sick. Not that he was exactly a porker to begin with, but one flu spell and you'd thing he'd been sitting in a refugee camps with an empty bowl and flies on his eyes.
I also went to the doctor's today for a bone scan and blood tests. It sounds worse than it is...it is just part two of a physical that I started last month.
Somehow, I got my cholesterol down to 134 which is what I wish I weighed, but never mind.


I can say this with confidence now.....drumroll please....we have broken the baby of his pacifier habit. I thought it would be harder and more painful than it has been. We had to wait until he was completely healthy. He was using it mostly to sleep but it started to get silly. He'd wake up crying in the night 3 or 4 times because he couldn't find his binky. I'd go it fumble around slapping the mattress looking for the holy grail. I even used baby links to attach it to the crib rail, but he never caught on to my ingenuity. It was just easier to hollar for me.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

I am sitting here waiting for a website to email me and tell my what my user name and password are.....
The boys are sick, again.
I'm hoping to call in the reserves tomorrow.

How long should an email like this take? ugh. I have no patience.

How many junk drawers in a house is acceptable? It seems that I have more than my allotted number.

Yesterday Q and I went to visit some dogs a lab rescue had at the pet store. I knew some of the dogs already, so when I sighted them it was as if I had spotted a celebrity-- oh wow there's Lacey, Max and Doc!!! I felt like I knew them already. I still am not quite ready for a dog yet. They baby is still small. And I haven't pored through every available book or DVD yet. I've got about 5 or 6 books and DVD's on hold for me at the library. I started Cesar Millan's book and tried some of his techniques on our friends dogs when I took care of them yesterday. I was pretty amazed that just a few things seemed to work .

My long time friend back home thinks I have lost my mind. She said to me "What a DOG! You with the germ thing? Do you know how dirty they are? Think about the poop! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?! I don't know you anymore."

The dog thing is just another way to invite chaos into my life...for me when I am searching for more chaos, I start work, have another baby.....or in this case get a dog.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Driving the Jeep in the cluttered garage
Taking time to stop and smell the pansies
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