Sunshine? We have had none of that for the last week! No problem though, Cali and I walk every morning, rain or shine, but this week proved to be very challenging for both of us.

Over the weekend, Cali had tons of energy and we were very excited to see that our happy-go-lucky, playful dog was back. (hooray!)

I spent the weekend finishing the kitchen, which meant painting the cabinet doors in the garage. The hard part of this portion of the project is that the cabinet doors – all 25 of them- were on the floor, which meant I had to bend over or squat the entire time I painted!  One coat of primer on each side and two coats of paint on each side. All I can say is “OUCH”! My back is so tight that I still cannot get comfortable sitting at my desk Sunday morning my back hurt so bad that I had to force myself to do the final coat of paint.  I guess I’m getting to old for this shit kind of back breaking work. (said in my best Murtaugh voice)

The evil back breakers!

To top things off, Cali has been moping around, unexcited about eating, and dragging ass behind on walks since Monday. I made a call to the Dental Specialist to follow up on our conversation last week and to let them know I am concerned that Cali is not feeling well, and it looks like she has food lodged in the socket where the tooth was pulled. I also told them about the corn cob incident. They instructed me to call my vet and get her in as soon as possible to make sure that the corn cob is not causing the discomfort, so we followed their advice and now we have an appointment at 3:00 pm today. We also have an appointment with the Dental Specialist next Thursday, so hopefully we can get all of this resolved and behind us!

I would have to give us a 2 out of 10 for the week. We had the intention of making it a great week (that counts for something, right?) – but our aging bodies have not been cooperating! We DID get out for a walk every day, but we didn’t add anything fun and exciting, and our walks seemed to take longer since we were both moving pretty slow! Maybe if we both get a good massage, we’ll be ready to take on the world next week!

Don

Check out the K9 Kamp Posts from Kol’s Notes and Peggy’s Pet Place and all other participating bloggers!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Cat + paint filled pan on the kitchen floor =

Kitty prints! The fun part was trying to catch her  . .she ran down the hall, into the bedroom, and over the bed <sigh>.

Good thing Zuni is such a cute kitty!!

P.S. sorry for the poor quality. My hubby snapped a picture with the cell phone as fast as he could, before the paint started to dry

I am excited about participating in Kol’s K9 Kamp! I have been working on my kitchen for over a month and my exercise regimen has been truly suffering.

Cali has had some issues of her own, and I’m sure she would enjoy some play time

I laughed when I read Jodi’s post about fat pants and muffin tops! I actually call mine my “fat belt” and I’m ready to shed it! Find out the details of the K9 Kamp at Kol’s Notes – you can get started too!

If you are looking for some fun with your dog – join in! This is a blog hop!

Cali seems to be feeling better. Less panting, more sleeping . . all is well

We worked hard all day, made some dinner, and then decided to go for a walk, sans dog.

Before dinner we removed all of the kitchen cabinet doors so I can paint them tomorrow, including the one that houses the trash can.

When we returned from our walk, there was trash all over the kitchen. We had corn on the cob for dinner, and it seems that Cali helped herself to an entire “cobb”.

13 years and she has never gotten into a garbage can, UN. BELIEVABLE. It’s probably because she has never had the opportunity.  Our garbage can has always been in a cabinet and I never even considered that she would get into the garbage tonight.

The first thing I thought about was her sutures. I checked her mouth, and sure enough there was corn lodged in the opening. GAH!!

We went in the back yard and I used the pointy end of this to try and gently pull bits of corn out.

I got some pieces out, but of course, now I’m worried that she did something to her  sutures and that there is more corn in there that I couldn’t see or get to. Have you ever tried to look into your dogs mouth while holding it open? Their tongue is all kinds of in the way.

How is it possible that I didn’t think about the fact that she might get into the trash can? I might cry.

We got home at 7:30 and the vet closes at 7:00. She seems to be comfortably resting right now after having me invade her mouth with a water bottle and floss pick. Fingers crossed that we will not have any problems before I can talk to the vet tomorrow. Can dogs digest corn cobs?

Doesn’t it seem like when it rains, it pours?

On a positive note . .it has been sunny and gorgeous for almost two weeks in Portland. I love it. Sunshine somehow makes everything just a little bit better!

I’m thinking about doing a blog hop called “what were we thinking?” about silly things we have all done involving our dogs or cats. Would anyone be interested in participating? Have you ever looked back on something and said, “What were we thinking??” I have a couple of things that I could write about

Thank you for all of  your kind comments about the longest day of my life. You all understand better than most of my friends and family how stressful this is and I’m so grateful to know all of you, even if it is virtually.

We had a long weekend worrying about Cali and trying to complete kitchen projects. I finally feel like we are getting close to having a kitchen again- today I am going to grout the back splash and seal the counter top so we can actually use it without fear of staining it! I’ll have pictures for you soon. This week is going to be all about painting the cabinets -then all we will have left is the baseboard trim. We have already decided that after this, we are taking the summer off!

I spoke to the vet last night to see how her call with the Dental Specialist went.  I’m anxious to know what our next step should be. Cali has not been acting herself all weekend. She has been itchy, and panting, and generally unable to settle down. She acted this way when we gave her pain pills when she first broke her tooth and we stopped giving them to her. So after speaking with the vet last night, we agreed that we would discontinue the pain pills to see if she settles down. So far this morning, she seems much more relaxed. Yay.

The Dental Specialist could not really make any recommendations without seeing Cali, so we need to make an appointment – there are only two Dental Specialists in Portland and her first opening is mid June, but the receptionist told me that the Doctor would review the case and they would give me a call back, so hopefully we can get in sooner.

We are trying to keep a positive attitude, Cali has been going on her walks and will occasionally grab a toy and bounce around. She still has the twinkle in her eye that we know an love. I will definitely keep you posted

I took this picture of her last night with the cell phone while we were sitting outside – you can see how her lip droops on the right side now and she looks a little glassy eyed (stupid pain pills!). Doesn’t matter. She is still our sweet (hungry) little girl

Hope you all had a great Mom’s day – I spent the day tiling – yup, I’m a wild party woman!

This morning at 7:45 we dropped Cali off at the vet to have her broken tooth removed. As you can imagine, I was totally dreading this and didn’t sleep very well last night. Unfortunately, I am a total worrier, it’s something I am trying to get better about, but that dark side of my mind always seems to take over!

When we dropped her off they told us that they would give us a call when she was waking up, and we would probably be able to pick her up around 3:00 pm.

I could not do anything productive all day. I was too distracted to read blogs, write anything, or do any design work, so I decided to work on the kitchen.

The day seemed to crawl by. Nothing tasted good, and all I could do was think about how empty the house was without my sweet little girl. (I’m not really proud of how dramatic I’m being . .but I can’t help it!)

Finally, around 2:15 pm, I got impatient and made a phone call to the vet. They said Cali was still in surgery and they would call me when she was awake. The vet tech called me back around 2:30 to say that she had gone into surgery a little later than they had planned, but she was doing well and they were still working on her.

So we waited. 4:00 came and went. 5:00 came and went. And then 6:00 came and went and I started to get a little bit frantic.

I asked my hubby to call at about 6:30 pm since they close at 7:00 and I wanted to make sure that we had time to get there to pick her up. She said that they were having trouble extracting the tooth, and they were still working on her, but we could start to head over if we wanted to (we live about 25 minutes away from the office).

We jumped in the car and made the drive to the vet. When we arrived, they said that she was just starting to wake up, and the vet would be out to talk to us soon.

I try to always keep a positive attitude, but I was starting to feel that queasy feeling in my stomach and I wanted to see my dog!

I REALLY like my vet. I think she is a wonderful, caring, qualified vet. The fact that Cali is 13 years old is what had me worried.

Apparently, they couldn’t really tell the tooth from the jawbone – when they started to remove the tooth it would crack and crumble and then they had a hard time distinguishing between the tooth and the jawbone. She was in surgery from about 12:30 until 6:30 and the vet said that she and the vet that was assisting her had never seen anything like this!!

My poor little girl. She was seriously out of it on the way home, but we did get her to eat a little bit. She is totally zonked out on her bed right now.

The vet is worried about pain – so we are armed with pain pills and antibiotics. She is planning on making a phone call to a dental specialist on Monday, so I have a feeling that this little tooth extraction saga is not over ;(

Please say a little prayer for Cali tonight. She is such a trooper and I’m sure she will bounce back, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be a long night.

I’ll keep you posted on her progress!!

The sun has been shining in Portland, Oregon lately and it makes everyone do this:

Isn’t that the cutest smile you’ve ever seen? She has been such a trooper during all of the remodeling noise and mess.

We still can’t decide if she is losing her hearing – it may be that her hearing is just getting a little bit more selective   I used to be able to say “pssst” while we were on a walk and she would turn around to see what I wanted, but not anymore. It doesn’t matter, she is still a happy, healthy girl. Thanks for all of the “pep talks” – you guys really are the best!!!

Do you ever Google yourself to see what is out there about you? Well I did this morning and found that Cali’s picture had been included on “Stunning Dog Photography #46″ on Dogfiles.com – I was very excited to see her sweet face included with so many other beautiful images.

I’ll end by sharing a very funny quote that I read this morning in an email from Hillary Rubin about How to Get Rid of Overwhelm Fast (it’s a great post if you have time to read it!)

Mark Twain said, “Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

As we finally approach the home stretch in the window replacement marathon, my hubby and I disagree on whether or not we should re-hang the blinds in the front window. I say “no” because I am painting the trim white, and they are a little off-white. He says “yes” because he likes to close them at night and we don’t want to spend anymore money. Apparently, Zuni is on my side.

These are the blinds . . .but something is missing!

Somehow, this was chewed off of every blind while they were laying on the floor!

I believe this is the culprit. I saw her chewing on a string when I walked in the room! She is giving me her most innocent look.

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I’m grouting tile today, hopefully I will get the walls textured, paint, get the back splash up, get the shelves up and paint all of the cabinets in the next week or so and get back to my regular schedule. Hopefully

Hope you had a great weekend without too much mischief!

Our remodel update of the kitchen is slowly but surely coming along and today, they cut the hole for the slider downstairs. Living in a construction zone is stressful (and dirty!). The house is a mess, we don’t have a stove or a sink, and I’m already tired of eating out . .but, enough about me. What is really making me sad is the things I have noticed about my dog this week.

Today some sales guys came to the door and rang the doorbell several times (I REALLY need to get a “no soliciting” sign!). Cali was camped out under the bay window in the kitchen. Usually when the doorbell rings, she jumps up and starts barking  . .actually, I’m pretty sure that usually she would have heard the guys coming up the walk before they ever rang the doorbell, but today, nothing. She was relaxed and never knew that they were here (I didn’t answer the door, since I have no desire to buy anything!) It makes me want to cry. For several weeks I have been trying to decide if she is losing her hearing, I guess now I have my answer

Last time we were at the vet she mentioned that Cali could be getting a little doggie Alzheimer   I lost two grandparents to Alzheimer disease, I didn’t even know that dogs could get it.

This is what has me worried: Every night somewhere between 7-8:00 pm I give the cats some wet food (mostly to make sure that skinny Monkey is eating!). Cali usually waits downstairs patiently until she thinks it is okay to go upstairs and “clean” the bowls. For the last two nights she has gone upstairs 3 or 4 times to lick the bowls. It’s almost like she forgot that she already did it.

I know that she is 13 – but I am not ready for her to be old She is our first dog, our baby, and I’m just not ready. How did you deal with your dog aging into the senior years?

Can you give my mom a little pep talk??

It has been a rough week around here. The new windows are being installed and it has been LOUD!! It’s been fun(?) trying to work with all of the hammering and sawing that has been going on. It took an entire day for them to tear off and replace the garden window in the kitchen and then most of the day yesterday to replace the windows in the dining room . .but I am happy to say THEY LOOK GORGEOUS!!

The cats have been safely locked away in our bedroom, which they all consider to be their “safety zone”. Zuni likes to be able to hide under the bed, while Ashley likes to watch all that is going on from the scratch post. Monkey? He just sleeps on the bed all day, barely opening his eyes when I walk in the room.

Today they are replacing the window in the bedroom so I am trapped in my tiny office with the three cats and they are NOT happy about it. Zuni is in full alert mode and won’t hide in any of the little hiding spots that I created for her. NO, she just sits staring at the door, willing it to open so she can run and hide under the bed Ashley is grumpy because she can’t see anything and gave Zuni a good slap upside the head because she walked too close to her. Monkey? Yeah, he is sitting on top of the scratch post giving me the stink eye. They’re lucky they are so cute!

I’m actually looking forward to going to DEQ to take a break from the noise! I have obviously lost my mind

Okay, back to the windows . .our old windows had “grids” in the glass, which many people like, but we think they made the house look dated.  I LOVE the way the new windows look!!!

This is a side view of the kitchen garden window . .you can see why we couldn't just replace it.

They just built a box on the outside of the house - we think it looks a little funky!

Just some more reasons why we are replacing the garden window!

It's gone!

New window! Yay!!!

From the outside . . .

Bay window "before"

Bay window "after"!

These are being replaced today! Goodbye grids!

The windows on the back of the house upstairs were replaced at some point with vinyl windows. They have the grids, but we can’t justify replacing them since they are in great condition. Somewhere down the road, we will replace the glass so there are no grids!

More of what will be replaced today.

This is the window that REALLY needed to be replaced!

The downstairs bedroom window . . yuck!

I can’t wait to post all of the “after” pictures with the new trim, etc. We plan on painting the house this summer. It seems that one project always leads into another one, doesn’t it? We have never really liked the color of the house and I’m excited to give it a facelift

This weekend we plan on tiling the counter tops. The stove and the dishwasher are being to delivered today (woohoo!) so it’s going to be a microwave food kind of weekend!

By the way, Cali is doing very well – her tooth doesn’t seem to be bothering her and her blood work looked great! Her urinalysis showed bacteria and white blood cells, so she is on an antibiotic (and probiotics) for seven days. For now, we are putting off extracting the tooth and keeping an eye on it!

I hope you have a great weekend! I’m off to convince our contractor that he should hire me to do some of his marketing!

Last Thursday I was walking out of the bedroom when I spotted this on the floor:

It was too big to be a cat tooth, so I decided that it had to belong to Cali I tried to look in her mouth but couldn’t really see anything (have you ever tried to look in your dogs mouth?). She seemed fine, but still, I started to worry.

I’m pretty sure that this is what caused the broken tooth: (she was really going to town chewing this the other night!)

Could the deer antler be responsible?

You know how it is . .if you “think” something is wrong, you start to notice that the dog is panting just a little bit more than usual, or seems a little more clingy than usual, and you make the call to the vet. Friday afternoon we took her in and we “sort of” confirmed that it was on the bottom right side. I say “sort of” because Cali did her best to keep us from actually looking in her mouth. Regardless, the vet said that we needed to remove the rest of the broken tooth.

I have a lot of angst about putting my 13 year old dog under anesthesia, but I also want to make sure that she is not in pain. The vet drew blood, gave us some pain pills, and we were off. Her tooth extraction is scheduled for this Friday.

This morning, we made a decision to stop giving her the pain pills because she was was awake all night panting. Since then she has been acting like her happy self. I still haven’t been able to actually get a good look at the broken tooth and she has been eating well, chewing on her tennis balls, and cleaning the cat bowls. We haven’t seen any signs of her being in pain.

This afternoon my hubby and I both decided that we don’t want her be put under anesthesia, so we are going to call and cancel the appointment tomorrow. I didn’t hear back from the vet today, so I’m not sure how her blood work looked, but for now, we are going to take the “wait and see” approach.

What do you think? Do you ever go with your gut instead of the advice of your vet? I want to do what is best for my dog and for some reason, I just don’t feel comfortable putting her under.

I'm just fine mom, I don't know what the vet is talking about!

We have had a couple of days of sunshine and 60 degree temps! Woohoo! The trees are started to show signs of life, and some spring flowers are appearing . .ah . . .life is good! Cali loves when the sun comes out, because it means that we sit outside and she LOVES to be outside

I’m just a little obsessed with photographing flowers. I worked at a garden center for 14 months as a graphic designer and my favorite part of the job? Taking pictures of all of the beautiful plants! I don’t have a fancy macro lens, but I love the images I get with the lens that I have. Fair warning, you are about to see LOTS of pictures of my favorite things to photograph . . new buds, flowers, and my dog

I hope you are enjoying your spring and taking some time to enjoy the outdoors with your favorite furry friends!

BTW . . I realize that some people are already enjoying summer temperatures . .my hubby landed in Phoenix tonight and is expecting 90 degree temperatures all week!! What is up with that??

I just love these little heart shaped flowers . .so perfect!

Hooray for sunny days!! I love being outside!

Rhodies are a sure sign of spring

So cute! (a dogwood bloom)

A beautiful dogwood flower!

I love tennis balls!

Tiny little flowering currant flowers

Do you think I can swallow this? Happy Dog!

Such a beautiful red!

Did you hear that? It sounded like a frog!

Every time we tried to find the frog . .it stopped making noise!

Seriously . . where is the frog?

My favorite little succulent. I have no idea what it is, but it gets the cutest little pink flowers!

Cute . . but why are there so many of these in my yard???

Happy Spring!!

It breaks my heart every time I read about a pet that has been “given up” because a family had to move, or a because a baby was born, or because the dog was just too active (or in other words . . .untrained!). The other excuses? “I don’t have time for him”, “I can’t afford her”, “He/she has medical issues that I cannot deal with”. Many people go into the adoption (or purchasing) process without having any idea about how much work a new pet can be.

I have known people that have had dogs since they were puppies and then, once they had a baby, had no use for the dog. I have no idea how this happens. It’s not my place to judge, I really just wish I could understand. How did you love this animal like a child and then give it up?

Calgary Humane Society did an amazing campaign that I really loved. “I am a forever dog. Not an “until” dog.” (you can see more here!)

I think it is important for rescue groups and humane societies to educate the public, starting with children! Everyone needs to realize that pets are not something that we get on a whim. They are a lifetime commitment. They deserve love, training, high quality food, and someone that will care for them their entire life.

What else can we do to impress upon people what a huge life choice adopting a pet is? How do we help people keep pets when they feel that they can’t? How can we reduce the number of pets that end up in shelters? These are just a few of the questions that keep me up at night and  I hope we can find solutions to in the near future. Kudos to Calgary Humane Society for their brilliant campaign!

I try not to be one of those people that complains all of the time (really, I do!!) but sometimes I get a little frustrated and this has been one of those weeks. Maybe it started with our remodeling project and the fact that our house is a complete mess, or maybe it was the three days of sunshine that encouraged all of our trees to bloom and kicked my allergies into full swing. It doesn’t matter what caused it . .I’m just kind of annoyed with the world!

I love to see all of the beautiful cherry blossoms. But every year, my allergies seem to get worse and the constant sneezing, along with the constant pressure on my brain, really gets me down. The headache just doesn’t seem to want to go away.

So pretty . .but OUCH . .my head hurts!

On top of that, my stubborn and talkative tuxedo kitty Monkey has been throwing up. He doesn’t feel the need to jump off of the bed, or step away from my shoe, or jump off of the dining room table . .NO, he just throws up on the tv remote control or whatever nice thing is conveniently located near him! Of course I am worried about him and what to know what is causing him to throw up so much, but I’m also just a little bit (okay, ALOT) annoyed. He actually threw up on my hubby’s desk last week . . .on his new blue tooth speaker. I think it’s obvious that he is mad at us and seeking revenge.

What? It's not my fault!

What about you? Anything really getting you down lately? I try to always keep a positive attitude and focus on the good, but you know what? Sometimes having a 96 hour headache just starts to get to you. I hope your week is going well. I did some drywall mudding last night . .and it turns out, I’m not very good at it! Oh well, I will keep you posted on the progress!!

Lucky for me I have some furry little creatures to entertain me and make me smile (well, except for that naughty boy Monkey!)

. . .trying out my new Instagram for Android app Why do I have a feeling that it works better on the iPhone??

Zuni!

Woohoo! I am so excited that this is post #100. If you know anything about me, you know that sometimes I have a problem sticking with something. It feels good to know that I have posted 100 times on my blog – yay me!

How did you spend your holiday weekend? We had absolutely GORGEOUS weather in Portland, OR. Sunny and above 60 degrees – EVERYONE was out running, riding their bikes, and walking their dogs. I love the fact that when we get a sunny day, people take advantage of it. What did we do? Well, we started updating tearing apart our kitchen!

We have lived in our house for 3 years this month. This is the first time that we haven’t gone totally crazy remodeling – immediately. We watch way too much HGTV and we really love dreaming about all of the things we would do to our house if we had an unlimited budget. As much as we would like to totally gut our kitchen and tear down the giant 2 sided fireplace that sits in the middle of our house, we are committed to not creating any more debt. So, anything that we do, we have to be able to pay cash for. SO – we are just doing a little updating. I recently started following the blog Young House Love. If you want to be totally inspired to become a DIY’er . .check out their site – amazing!!

Things we do not like about our current kitchen:

1. The oak cabinets. Even though they are very nice hard wood, we are just not oak people and our kitchen is pretty dark.
2. The gray-blue tile countertops with gray grout. UGH. They are so hard to clean.
3. The “appliance garages” at both ends of the counter. They take up almost all of our counter space in an already small kitchen!
4. The garden window. I don’t mind it and actually, I enjoy putting plants there . .but they are metal windows that we cannot replace and they get moldy (yuck!).
5. The electric stove.
6. The 2 bowl sink.
7. The ugly microwave box that sticks out!

What we hope plan to accomplish:

1. Remove the upper cabinets on the South wall and replace them with open shelving (we found out actually that the house had open shelves – so we are restoring it to it’s original design – yay!!) Repaint the lower cabinets white!
2. Remove the countertops and re-tile with 18 x 26″ granite tiles (super affordable!!)
3. Replace the garden window with a regular old window.
4. Have gas run to the stove and replace the stove with a gas stove.
5. Replace the sink with one giant bowl!

The Challenges:

1. Our stove in located in the peninsula so we have only ONE option for a gas stove. There will be no bargain shopping.
2. OUR BUDGET! It is amazingly expensive to have the window replaced and we need several of them replaced. I’m going to need to make some money!!
3. Figuring out how the tile the peninsula. The cool thing about the 18 x 26″ tiles is that they are counter depth – you have minimum grout lines and the front edge is polished. (You cut 1″ off of the back to create the “apron” for the front of the counter). I’m haven’t quite figured out how to have the polished edge all the way around the peninsula. My brain hurts from thinking about it!
4. We started to take down the soffits and realized that there is no ceiling above them . .the insulation was coming through and it made a huge mess . . so we decided to only take down the one that was between the kitchen and the dining room.
5. We are not good at drywall. Hopefully, if I take my time, it will look okay!
6. We thought we could “rework” the microwave box . .but it didn’t work out and now we need to build a new box!

I thought it would be fun to document the work and all of the fun that we are having. BTW, ouch. Nothing makes you feel old like hard labor! Following are some pictures of the kitchen and what we accomplished over the weekend. There is SO much work still to be done – but we are determined to have fun with it!

One of the lovely "appliance garages" aka "counter hog!"

The lovely garden window and the sink I would like to replace.

Are you sure you want to do this? Let's just go and play!

The ugly microwave box!

Bye bye kitchen!

One cabinet down!

Two down!!

Yay! No more cabinets!!

Good bye soffit!!!

What about you? What did you do over the holiday weekend? Did you tackle any projects? Do you enjoy the occasional DIY project? I hope to keep a positive attitude and take my time . . we’ll just have to see how that goes!