I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would think this cute little dog is spoiled, can you?

Seriously, this is the scene that takes place pretty much every morning, especially since school has been out for the summer and dog and daughter sleep in every morning. It’s really a pretty pathetic site to see and I can’t imagine what the dog is going to do when school is back in session!

This morning, I had my absolute worst day of work to date on my current job. It was so bad that I emailed my supervisor to let him know that something had to change, the current status quo was just too frustrating. Then, while I should be spending the afternoon with my daughter, instead, I decided to look for new employment options. In that vain, I decided to check out an online business course at Learn.com.

I discovered that Learn.com had many online course to help improve Job skills in a variety of fields including nursing, management, sales and marketing. I opted to take a course in Business, Human Resources Assistant to be specific.

So, I registered for free at Learn.com and then purchased the Human Resources Assistant Course. I downloaded the software very easily and then immediately started in on the lessons. I opted to start with the Active Listening lessons first, one of about 11 lesson plans in the course. Within the Active Listening lesson, it was divided into about 10 separate lessons and began with a pretest. I found everything in the lesson to be super easy to follow and the review questions easy to answer because of how the information had all been presented, both visually and verbally.

When the lessons are all completed, there is a Skills Test to complete. This will be the case for most, if not all, of the remaining lessons in the Human Resources course load. Once I’ve finished the entire course, I’ll be able to use my Skills Test scores on my resume to present to potential employers as a way to reflect my knowledge of the job. I chose to do the Active Listening first because it’s something I currently use in my part time job and I can now share what I learned with co-workers and even my supervisor.

I really like the format of the courses at Learn.com and I would certainly recommend the site for anyone interested in improving their own Job skills.

#1. Clair’s question. What’s the biggest kitchen blunder you’ve made? My biggest blunder was when I made a corn souffle (sort of a corn casserole) and I left the main ingredient out, no corn!

#2. What’s your favorite snow day beverage? When it’s really cold, I love a hot cocoa with some Bailey’s in it.

#3. What’s your favorite way to eat celery? I like it with peanut butter or ranch dressing.

#4. What’s the most most unappealing looking food you can think of? The first thing that came to mind was squid, but then I thought about countries that eat bugs as a delicacy and that really grosses me out!

If you’d like to play along, please visit Fun, Crafts and Recipes.

To all the dads, I wish you all a wonderful Father’s Day and hope you get the opportunity to spend time with your family, take it easy, and relax!

As for us, we’ve been to brunch and to the local nursery for some beautiful flowers.  Now we’re heading out to the pool where we’ll spend the rest of the afternoon, lounging! 

Let me tell you though, by the end of the afternoon, I sure could have used a nice cold energy drink to keep me going, a BluFrog energy drink would’ve certainly done the trick!

Speaking of BluFrog, check out their “It’s a Blu World” contest for a change to win a grand prize valued at up to $3,500, a trip for 2 to the winner’s choice of either, New York City, Chicago, Orlando or Aspen. Oh man, I’d love to go to Aspen, that would be so amazing!

There are 3 ways to enter the contest, 1) leave a comment on the BluFrog page, 2) Twitter about the contest, or 3) write a blog post about the contest and leave your post URL here. Don’t wait to enter, this contest ends July 17, 2009.

I am willingly putting an end to my peaceful morning and heading out into the heat to do some much needed landscaping work. I’m sure I’ll be jumping into the pool regularly to cool down, but I hope to get most of the bushes trimmed by the end of today. I got started on this major project this past Wednesday and am actually almost half way finished. It’s times like this when I realize just how many bushes we have around our house!

I hope everyone has a fabulous Saturday and is able to enjoy some family time!

The worst thing I noticed though was all the dog hair all over the sofa. I’m sure it looked this bad before her friend came over, but I really need to clean it. I have one of those pet sweepers I can use on all the cushions, it’s so much easier than using the heavy vacuum. I think there’s enough dog hair on the cushions, I could probably construct a new dog!

I’ve been pretty surprised at how much our dog sheds, particularly since every breeder I talked to said they don’t shed much. I can tell you first hand that I’m sweeping the wood floors every 2-3 days because of the amount of dog hair and it doesn’t matter what time of year it is, this cute little dog sheds like there’s no tomorrow!

I recently read that it is not normal for dogs or cats to shed year around. This does seem like common sense to me, but, Plinko on the other hand must think differently because she certainly has been shedding all the time in the 2 years she’s been living with us. If there’s a way to cut back on her hair loss, my clean up time would be reduced and I’d have more time for other things. So, I checked out the solutions center at Dinovite and learned that Plinko’s diet may be low in Amino Acids, Fatty Acids and minerals such as Zinc which are all important for maintaining a healthy coat. Dinovite even supplied me with a solution report and a recommendation for nutritional supplements that could help reduce the amount of shedding within 90 days.

While I am going to check into this a little further, I have a pretty strong feeling that I’ll be ordering those supplements. A dog that sheds less would lead to a house filled with less hair!

I am so thrilled, my very first quilt is finally completed! I pieced this quilt together last fall for my granddaughter. It is going to be our gift to her for her 2nd birthday next month. After I pieced the top together, I sent it to my mom who is a long time quilter. In fact, every quilt in my house was made by her, except for one, and that one was made by my sister. My mom hand quilted this for me and sewed on the binding and it is absolutely beautiful (at least, I think so!).

For the final touch, I needed a label to go on the back of the quilt. My embroider software is in my computer that has died, so I did the next best think, I hired someone to make a label for me. I want to shout a HUGE thank you to Susie at Susie’s Sew Creations at Etsy.com. Susie was so incredibly helpful and custom created this wonderful label for me, isn’t it fantastic?!  (the black marks are not really on the label, they’re covering last names for privacy).