…the need to LEAVE.

I’ve had the travel bug this year.

Bad.

I guess in reality I haven’t traveled that much.  I went to Phoenix is April, but that was for work.  I went to San Diego in June for a family wedding and extended it for some vacation time.  I went to Los Angeles in August but that was for a funeral.  So, no, I haven’t traveled enough this year.

So I think I can plan some more trips.

I’m thinking DC in October.

I’m thinking the Florida Keys in March

I know I’ll be in Portland come May.

In the mean time, though, I think I need to go camping.  Wonder how the dog will do camping?  Although, considering how loud she’s snoring on her bed right now I don’t think anyone will want to go camping with me if they have to share a trailer with her.

Or, maybe I’ll go to Missoula for a weekend.

Or Canada.

Any ideas?  Anyone want to join me?

I guess I could stay home and do something on my house.

Hmm…..thinking, thinking, thinking…

OK, I’m not really jealous of my dog but seriously, listen to my morning.  On my way to the office I went through the coffee drive-thru only no one asked me how I was doing.  No, they asked how the dog was and how the cat was and if the dog could have a treat.  I know, sweet, huh, then we headed to the bank.  Again I went through the drive-thru and the lady helping me asks if my dog can have a treat (seriously, she didn’t ask me if I had a transaction, she asked if my dog could have a treat) then she left to do my banking transaction and not one but TWO other tellers came to the window to see the dog.  And asked me to come inside next time instead of using the drive-up window because they are a “dog friendly bank”.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a dog friendly bank let alone that I chose to bank there.  So, tomorrow we’re going inside so my spoiled dog can meet everyone at the bank.  (OK, I just thought that was funny.)

So, that picture above, that’s when Panda got to meet the cows.  That glee you see in her eyes…that’s from the fact that the cow is licking her — yes, the cow was licking her.  The nastiness on her chest, that’s from when she army crawled through the mud trying to figure out how to get closer to the cows.  I wish I could have seen it but I was out of town at my Grandma’s funeral and my assistant and her boyfriend were dog-sitting.  I had a great giggle over that picture though.  Who knew that my BULLdog would be enamored with cows.  (If you don’t see the humor in that research why bulldogs were bred in the 1600s.)

So, when I returned from my adventure (ha) to California for my Grandma’s funeral I had to take the dog and the cat to the vet.  I wish I could blame that adventure on someone else but, no the idiocy wisdom of trip was all me.  It was supposed to be a quick, easy trip to have Panda rechecked after her ear/eye/skin infection and get Jeeves updated on his shots.  Instead it turned into Jeeves staying there all day for observation because his gut was bloated with gas, he’d lost a bunch of weight and started vomiting all over my bedroom (no, not the house my BED and the floor beside my bed).  See, that beautiful kitty who’s trying to look so calm and cute in that picture (because the dog is sound asleep, snoring, in her locked crate) is a psycho case.  Yeah, the vet recommended anxiety medication for my cat, after we get the stomach infection under control that he got from being so anxious over our new resident.

Freaking cat.

Oh, I didn’t tell you about my adventure at the vet with Panda.  I had an appointment scheduled after I got her to get her checked out.  No big deal, right?  Well, I had to call and move that appointment up to an urgent same-day appointment because she had an oozing rash on her chest.  So, we get in and besides the oozing hot spot she had an ear infection in BOTH ears and a scratch on her eye that got infected.  But, that’s not the crazy part.  The crazy part is that my dog needs an EYE LIFT.

Yeah, I never even knew they did plastic surgery on dogs and here I own one that needs it.  Now, before you go all Beverly Hills on me listen.  Bulldogs have wrinkles (thus the need to clean her wrinkles every night to get the slobber and drool and whatever else gets stuck in them).  Well, my lovely bulldog has a wrinkle on her eye lid that causes the lower lid to roll in which puts her eye lash poking right into her eyeball which causes it to scratch the surface of the eye every time she blinks.  Thus, the eye infection.

You can laugh now.  I did, right after I rolled my eyes.

So, we’re planning that surgery — it will happen at some point.  So, that last picture if Panda playing with her pink soccer ball.  I should have gotten a video so you could hear the snorting and grunting that took place but I didn’t, and now I can’t because the soccer ball is in the garbage (after I gagged) because it was sopping wet with dog drool.

OK…I gotta get.  The dog is snoring, the cat is panicking because the crate isn’t locked yet, and I have a busy day at work tomorrow.  My high maintenance animals and I need out beauty sleep so we can tackle the day.  Well, they need their beauty sleep, I need my sleep so I can take care of their many needs tomorrow.

Seriously, my animals are more high maintenance than I am….there’s something wrong with that.

So, Saturday morning I got up kind of early and headed to Kalispell to pick up Panda.  It was a LONG drive, seriously 200+ miles each way.  Not too bad but, long.

I met her previous family in a parking log and they said their good-byes.  Then I strapped her in to the car and we headed home.

The colorful pile is her turtle bed and special blanket.  So, the first question everyone asks is:  “how’d she do on the drive?”  So, I’ll tell you, she slept.  No joke, she slept the 3 1/2 hours it took us to get home.  I stopped at a rest-stop for her to go potty, but she didn’t need to.  We also ran into a problem with the travel dog bowl I bought for her.  So, we had to improvise.

After that stop we hit the road for the rest of  drive.  I had to stop somewhere to pick up a dog bed for her because I’d prefer if she slept on a comfy bed that is all hers rather than on my couch.  I found a super ugly (I’m sorry, but it’s ugly) but comfy looking tiger striped bed that I bought.  Of course, she LOVES it.  So, no matter how ugly I think it is she can have it.  Then we stopped at Petco hoping to see the lady who helped me pick out the stuff we’d need for the drive home but she was already gone for the day.  So, I bought a toothbrush (don’t laugh…the family who had her had started brushing her teeth so I’ll keep it up because brushing her teeth is a heck of a lot cheaper than dental work for rotten teeth).  She actually doesn’t mind getting her teeth brushed.

We got home, she and I explored the house with her on a leash, then I let her off the leash to check things out.  She seems to like the house.  Then, she met Jeeves.  That didn’t go over too well.  Jeeves isn’t so sure about a dog coming to invade his house.  Especially a dog that actually wants to greet him.  All was fine with that until Panda realized she could almost reach the window sill that Jeeves was taking refuge on.  Thus the great chase began and ended with one shattered glass and my dinner all over the floor.  The cat hid, the dog had to go to the laundry room so I could clean up the shattered glass (she wasn’t in trouble, I needed to keep her safe).  Jeeves decided to venture out again which resulted in another shattered bowl.  Yeah, I learned my lesson and have put things away for now.

So bedtime came and Panda wasn’t too sure about that.  She wandered the house and explored and made lots of noise all night.  I think she was nervous or anxious and didn’t know what to do.  I also learned that her back legs creak when she walks.

And, she snores.

Loud.

So, that cemented my decision to get her a crate.  I went yesterday to pick up the crate and brought it home.  Put the ugly dog bed (that she loves) in there.  She LOVES the crate.  She laid in it a lot yesterday and when it was bedtime I told her to go to bed and she walked right in and settled in for the night.  Not a peep out of her all night.

This morning I decided to bring her to work with me.  I wanted to give Jeeves a break at home and it’s hot so I didn’t want Panda stuck inside all day.  When I picked up the crate yesterday I also bought her another bed which I brought to the office.  Of course, she’d rather sleep on the floor than on the comfy bed I bought her (crazy dog).  So, now she’s laying on the floor behind me snoozing (luckily not snoring yet).

Brian came over last night, he wasn’t too impressed with how cute she is but she sure likes him.  She danced around and shared her nasty bone with him.  He even played with it with her.  Faye and Kyle came over this morning to meet her.  She loves both of them but Kyle isn’t so sure about her.  She just wanted to play with him but he just wasn’t so sure about that.  So, we’ll slowly work up to them playing together.  Kyle did like her, and she was super nice to him just excited to have a kid around.

So, there’s the shortened version (yeah, it’s the short version) of the weekend with Panda. 

1. Tomorrow
2. morning
3. I’m
4. picking
5. up
6. my
7. bulldog
8. Panda
9. in
10. Montana.

I’m not excited or anything.

Hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!

So, I mentioned that I might be dog-sitting.  Well, Miss Chloe has arrived and we’re doing good so far.  She and Jeeves get along fine as long as they ignore each other.  I’ll admit that occasionally they will look at one another and I swear they just do it to piss the other off.  But, they really are fine together.  Honestly, if it weren’t for the beast dogs two doors down that like to terrorize Jeeves we’d probably be fine.  But, yeah, the beasts have ruined life for Jeeves.

But, let me tell you a secret about this dog.  She is completely and totally OBSESSED with my father.  She’s his dog, right, so that would make sense, right.  Except one problem, she was MY DOG FIRST.  My feelings are kind of hurt.  Seriously, she was mine, I adopted her.  I loved her when my father said she was ugly way back when she was missing all her fur from the trauma of her old abuser (aka owner).  But, whatever, now she’s OBSESSED with my dad.  Which wouldn’t be that big of a deal except the dog freaks out if my dad isn’t around.

For example, this morning she was at the office with me.  She was laying nicely on the little bed I made for her under my desk.  My dad got bored so he came to the office for a few minutes.  The dog sees him and when he leaves she whines and carried on until I took her outside so she could see that he wasn’t there.

But, that’s not it.  We had to go by the store tonight because my dad left something there.  I sat in the car with the dog while he ran inside.  The dog literally paced the entire TWO minutes he was gone.  Not in a fun “where’d he go” search but in a panic pacing action.

And, don’t even get me started on bed time.  My dad is trying to convince himself it will be OK for the dog to stay here with me when they go home.  So, she’s supposed to stay in my room at night.  Yeah, that means she paces and cries ALL NIGHT LONG until I give in and let her in his room.  Last night we worked out a deal, sort of, (actually I took charge and told her she needed to get over it) I put her in her crate for a while then told her she could get back in bed ONLY if she went to sleep.  It worked, until 4:30AM (that was at 12:30 so it worked for 4 hours which is better than the night before).

Right now, she’s in her crate, crying.  But, as soon as I publish this I’ll let her out and hopefully she’ll settle down and sleep.  Cause seriously, she’s driving the cat and me crazy.

But, she’s really giving me the “I want a dog” itch BAD.  We’ll see.

OK…she’s barking, gotta go show her who’s boss.

So, since I don’t have enough that I’m doing right now I offered to dog-sit my parents dog (you know the dog that used to be mine that my dad adopted (or dognapped) from me a few years ago).  They put their house on the market and since they are driving up here next weekend with my sister and Rider I figured it would be a lot easier for them to bring Chloe up here then and be able to show their house without her around plus packing and moving would be easier.

So, here’s the problem, the dog is C-R-A-Z-Y, I have a cat and I’m not sure how either will do with the other.  Plus, the dog is C-R-A-Z-Y.  So, to keep the dog safe, me sane, and my house from getting destroyed by this (C-R-A-Z-Y) dog I am looking for a crate.  (Plus, I just think crates are good for dogs.)  Here’s where I need your help…anyone have any input on crates?

The dog is 8 inches tall and about 12 inches long.  So, I need some input on the right size crate for her.  Also, I’m not sure which type is best.  Chloe is C-R-A-Z-Y but she won’t chew or destroy the crate (honestly, despite my dad’s protests I really think she’ll like it) but I’m not sure which is the best choice.  Ideally I’d like to use this for a future dog that I hope to add to my family (assuming it’s the right size and assuming I find someone who can install a fence for less that the price I paid for my house).

So, with all that randomness, opinions please. 

I don’t have to think about how much I’m buying at the grocery store.  OK, I guess I kind of do because my fridge/freezer/cupboards are only so big.  But, in my apt I used to have to consider how heavy the bags were and how many bags there were becuse I had two flights of stairs to deal with between the car and my front door.  Here’…not so much.  There’s one step from the garage to the house and that’s it.  No running up and down stairs with bags or losing feeling in my arm because I tried carrying more than I should have.

So, there you have it.

So, anyone who knows me (and probably quite a few who don’t) know that my life has been almost completely consumed with buying a house since, oh, about February.  Well, I’ve been living in said house for ten days now and just have some random thoughts to share with you about being a homeowner.

So, here we go, randomness…

1. No matter how much you preplan where everything will go in a new house inevitably you will change something after you move in, unpack, and get things put away.  I’m sure I’m not completely abnormal in the fact that I rearranged the kitchen four times and moved the linen closet around twice in a matter of ten days.
2. Unless you custom design a house (and even then I doubt it would be perfect) something will not make sense.  For example…ten days and I’m still reaching for the kitchen light on the wall that it ISN’T and having to turn around and flip it on on the wall that it is on.  And don’t even get me started on the kitchen cabinets.
3. OK, speaking of kitchen cabinets, seriously, I know I’m not the only person who has dishes and glasses and other kitchen stuff.  Who ever thought of making cabinets that are so stinking narrow that you can barely fit things in?  I finally have the dishes and glasses in sensible places but that leaves the spices in the only available cupboard which is the one that isn’t wide enough for a spice rack so they are all one level.  No big deal EXCEPT that I always seem to need to empty the entire flippin’ shelf to get to the one jar I need.
4. Utilities.  Yes, I knew there would be more utilities in a house then in my apartment.  But seriously, can these people not work together a little bit?  I have to write once check to the sewer company, another check to a different company for garbage pick-up, another check to a completely separate company for water service, and another check to a fourth company for electricity, and let’s not forget the fifth company that I have to write a check to for gas.  Yeah, FIVE companies and that’s not even talking about cable or internet service.  Seriously?  FIVE different companies?  I think they are in cahoots with the postal service or the check printing companies or something.
5. Noise. I lived in an apartment and had the most annoying LOUD neighbors but OMG I never realized how noisy a house is. Seriously this thing hums and rumbled and moans louder than having the three kids around WITH frends over. What the heck…quiet would be nice.

Seriously, though, it may sound like I’m complaining, I’m not.  (Well, maybe I am but only because I have to find something to complain about and this really is a pretty amazing thing being in this house and knowing that it’s MINE.)

After ten days I couldn’t be happier.  Well, if someone would help me figure out where to hang the stuff that is supposed to go on my walls but is still sitting in boxes I might be a little happier.  And well, if someone wanted to help me figure out a layout and design option for my office/craft room I’d probably be a lot happier.  Oh, and if someone wanted to help me figure out what the heck to do with the beastly flower bed that is really just a weed patch I know I’d be a lot happier.  But, I do love my house.  I love coming our the bend each night and seeing my driveway.  I love pushing the garage door opening and knowing it’s the door to MY garage opening.  I love putting my car in the garage and knowing that I’m home.  (Heck, I really love parking in the middle of the garage and knowing that I can take up as much of it as I want LOL.)

So, there’s some random thoughts from a homeowner. 

So, it took lots of work and even more patience but I’m in my new house.    If you click on the picture below you can view a bunch of pictures I’ve taken since I received the keys.

As of this morning all the rooms are livable.  I still need to figure out a desk solution for the office/craft room but each room looks like something I’m OK with showing people.  I don’t have anything up on the walls, though (with the exception of one picture that I knew exactly where it was going).

Enjoy!