Quirks

One of the best things about having Bailey around is the funny things she does daily to make me laugh.

She loves squeaky toys. Unfortunately, she destroys them within 30 seconds of play so she doesn't get them very often. The funny part: she carries the toy around in her mouth, making it squeak. Then she whines in response. It's like she is having a conversation with the squeaker, or maybe singing along with it... Whichever, it's the only reward we can use to get her to "speak" on command.

She is also very observant. She knows what her world looks like and when something is different. It takes her a bit to adjust to any changes. Early this fall, I found her looking out the window near her kennel. Her hackles were raised and she was growling and barking like there was an intruder in the house. I looked out the window to try to figure out what it was. I saw nothing. I figured it was a squirrel or something that was long gone. So I let her out. She ran full speed to the center of the yard and barked and circled a spot on the ground like it was the most offensive thing she had ever seen. So I went to investigate. Here is what I found:


A mushroom, people... seriously... apparently it popped up over night...

This yesterday morning, she did it again... hackles and all. I couldn't figure out what she was so upset about. I let her out and she flipped out, barking and growling... I bought a new brand of trash bags and there was an unfamiliar color sitting at our curb... a black trash bag, people!

I guess that's a guard dog for ya.


I wonder why she wasn't phased by the Christmas Tree....?

Plagiarism

After that month of daily posting, I am suffering some severe writers block... so here is a cute e-mail I received from "Nancy" a while back. Hope you enjoy:

Where do pets come from?

A newly discovered chapter in the Book of Genesis has provided the answer.

Adam and Eve said, "Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you any more. We are lonesome here, and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us."

And God said, "I will create a companion for you that will be with you and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves."

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve.

And it was a good animal.

And God was pleased.

And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.

And Adam said, "Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal."

And God said, "I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG."

And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them.

And they were comforted.

And God was pleased.

And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well."

And God said, "I will create for them a companion who will be with them and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration."

And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve.

And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat's eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings.

And Adam and Eve learned humility.

And they were greatly improved.

And God was pleased.

And Dog was happy.

And Cat didn't give a hoot one way or the other.

Oops

My MIL and FIL were sitting at their table chatting. During the conversation, my FIL got a pill out for Geronimo and laid it on the table to wait for the dog to walk by.

My MIL looked away for a minute. When she looked back, my FIL tossed a pill into his mouth and took a drink. She figured he had grabbed an aspirin and didn't think anything of it.

About 30 seconds later:

FIL: Did I just take that pill?
MIL: You took something...

They called the vet to see if there would be any problems or if they needed to visit a doctor. They were told that the meds were the same used on humans.

Vet: Keep an eye on him. If he starts barking, call me back.

So they laughed about it but my MIL still kept an eye on him just in case.

A few hours later, they were driving up the road. My MIL asked if he was feeling ok. In true FIL fashion, he turned to her and barked...

Ornament

A lady at my church is expecting her third child. She and her OB/GYN are on very good terms and easily joke about all kinds of stuff throughout her exams.

She decided to get him a Christmas gift but was not sure what would be the most appropriate. So she did some digging on the web and found a brand new speculum pretty cheap.

When it arrived, she added some pipe cleaners, a small red poofy ball and some googly eyes and transformed the boring piece of medical equipment into a reindeer ornament... I wish I had a picture...

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Bailey's weight has been fluctuating lately. We switched her food to the adult formula right after her first birthday so that may have something to do with it. She was 78.5 on the 7th.

I Did It!!!

I did it!!! Thirty posts in 30 days! I can't believe it.

So I kept my promise and posted each day during the month of November. I decided to keep this blog going. It helps me free my brain and keeps me from having to repeat my stories a million times...

Thanks for putting up with me this month. The plan from now on is to post once a week. Sometimes I will post more, sometimes less. I will try to keep my rambling to a minimum.

Nani Part 2

We lost her on Sunday, Mother's Day. I had to take a final the next day. Let me tell you how fun that was... or not. I could have postponed it. But I wanted to get it over with so I could have the rest of the week to deal with family stuff.

On Monday, I went with my parents to set up the arrangements. We put together the obituary and chose a casket... that was probably the most surreal experience of my life.

BB flew in Wednesday night. Thursday evening we had the visitation at my parents' church. Friday was the funeral. The whole thing just didn't seem real. I saw people I hadn't seen in years. I saw people I will probably never see again.

Lunch was served at the church afterwards. We sat around and told stories and relived memories for a good part of the afternoon. It was actually pretty nice.

It's been months but it's still not sinking in that she's gone. Little things remind me... I call my parents' and no one answers. I turn onto their street and she isn't sitting on the porch. Just this week I was putting together my list of Christmas gifts to buy... the list looks very short with out her on it.

I miss her.

Aggravation

Patience doesn't always pay off.

I am a scrapbooker. I love designing layouts and the cutting and pasting of pictures and embellishments to display the events in my life. There is a group that gets together once a month through my church and we crop for 6 or 12 hours depending on the month. There are also scrapbook stores that hold their own crops as well. I try to crop once or twice a month and I love it.

I am a perfectionist when it comes to my layouts. I want the titles and any other words on the page to be uniform and clean. I usually plan the layouts before hand and use my computer to type and print out captions and titles for the pictures I want to do before each crop. But that isn't always possible. I can use stickers and chip board letters to spell things out, but there are always so many left over that I can't use and it's frustrating to throw any of it away.

A couple ladies at the church get-together have die cutters and a Cricut machine I can use. But they are not always there every month and they don't always bring all of their supplies. So a lot of time I am suck organizing layouts and never getting anything put together. So I decided to purchase a Cricut machine for myself.

Now these machines are not cheap. The one I want is portable and runs anywhere from $200 to $250. I have seen them on sale for $189 down to $169. Last year, I found out after the fact, on Black Friday, a local discount store had them for $119. So all year I watched and waited. I saw the typical sale prices and had to keep telling myself to be patient and that they were bound to have a similar sale this year.

I was patient. I held back. I was so excited when Thanksgiving finally came and I could search the ads for my long awaited prize. And it wasn't there. What was there was the model that was twice as big as the one I wanted. Not nearly as portable, that model runs $250 to $300. It's down to $199 today. Still a good buy but not what I want.

So here I sit, eating my breakfast and bidding on the one I do want on e-bay. I could have done this a lot sooner and saved myself the aggravation. But that would have been too easy. And I guess I like to do things the hard way.