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The Joy of the Holiday Season

Monday, November 26th, 2007

I should be in bed right now but I’ve got too many things going on before I can crash tonight. I had to activate Sean’s cell phone with some extra minutes and now both mine and his are charging because we’re going to need them today. I’ve had to line the entire living room with newspaper because Princess got into some stuff up in New York and she’s almost doubled in size because she’s full of so much dog food she can’t even move right now. She’s known for getting into things which is why we have a tendency to leave all food out of her reach. Up in NY, however, someone left a door open and a huge mixing bowl of food that would usually go to the two dogs in Karen’s sisters house was scafooned by Princess. Now, she’s used to a 1/2 cup of food a few times a day. One of her sisters dogs is an Akita/Saint Bernard mix so naturally he’s going to get much more than a 1/2 cup. So she managed to eat the entire bowl before anyone found her and is now feeling the effects of it. The problem is she’s allergic to Chicken and all of it’s byproducts. The food she ate was loaded with chicken so she’s having an allergic reaction on top of her bloated-ness from eating her weight in food, basically.

So the second Karen got home tonight she put Princess down and she dropped a few loads in the house. So having the living room lined with newspaper and wee-wee pads is my attempt to save the carpet. Since we have the flea stuff in the carpet, any kind of liquid will deactivate it, so having her drop a load of any kind all over the floor is just going to make things worse. Hopefully my idea helps. She’s having trouble breathing, but when you’ve doubled in size over the course of 20 minutes, naturally that’s going to have some kind of an effect on you. Since she’s an “indoor dog” 100% there’s going to be a lot of presents left everywhere. Damn I’m happy that my dog is completely trained to go outside. Any accidents in the house are one thing, but deliberately crapping wherever you please, wee-wee pad or not, while you’re sick – time for a new carpet.

Anyway – Sean is already in bed. Hopefully I’ll be able to finalize some things in here so I can wake myself up at 9am and be out of here by 10:30 at the latest. We’re taking a trip up to Dover to get some Christmas shopping done before the whole “rush” kicks in. Best Buy is a big trip, but we’re unsure of whether or not we’re going to pick up a television, depends on whether or not it’ll even fit in the car. Then we’re going up to the mall and separating for a couple of hours to do some real shopping. I’m really not sure of what I’m going to be picking up for him but that’s why floating around stores makes things much easier on me. I know that I’m going to need to stop into Spencers and Gamestop but after that – I’ve got no idea. That’s only on his gifts though, I ordered a lot of things online for him. The mall based shopping is a family thing at this point, gift certificates and clothes should cover just about everyone.

I refuse to order gift certificates online, I’ll tell you that much. I attempted to do it yesterday, ordering about $300 in Visa Debit Cards and the first time I submitted the order, nothing took. The second time it wouldn’t go through so I completely gave up. Until I took a look at my bank account and saw $650-something on hold. I called up the company and asked why I’m being charged that much when I don’t even have an invoice to show for it and they told me that the second my card number is typed in the money is held, PLUS there are the basic fees just to print the cards so that explains the $50 ($25 for each order). Either way that money should HOPEFULLY be replaced by Friday and I don’t have to worry about it. If it still goes through and I get no product from the company I’ll have to battle it out with the bank. I know that $650 really isn’t that much money but when you have nothing to show for it and it’s gone – that’s a pretty annoying situation.

I ordered a new monitor tonight so hopefully that’ll be here by this weekend. Newegg is good about getting things to you in a timely manor, considering I’m already on step 4 within 2 hours of placing the order, not bad for a midnight purchase. I picked up two monitors, one for me and one for my father. I bought him a computer for Christmas and the original monitor that I purchased just seemed to small. He’s on a 17″ CRT now and I stupidly ordered a 15″ LCD. So I’m giving the 15″ to Sean to replace his current 15″ monitor and the 17″ will go to Dad with his new system. The other will replace my dying monitor. It’s not “dying” it’s just beginning to fade and making a strange buzzing sound. Considering Karen likes the fuzzy monitors (her eye sight is horrible) maybe I’ll see if she wants to take it then we can boot her CRT as well. I swear I’m the PC queen when it comes to holidays. Everyone gets either a computer or a monitor from me – this is going on 5 years in a row.

Maybe next year I’ll just bank all of the money and buy myself a fully loaded Mac :hrm:

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Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Family, Gadgets, Pets | 3 Comments »

Clearing up confusion…

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

There seemed to be a little bit of confusion with my last entry.¬† There are three dogs in this house, only one of them go outside but all of them are protected from fleas, ticks and all the other goodies that can latch onto them if they step out the door.¬† While animals typically can carry these glorious little fuckers into the house, that doesn’t mean that humans can’t do it either.¬† Delaware has it’s downfalls, like many other states across the US a lot of homes are built onto acres that once housed many tall trees and even more little critters.¬† Humans can track fleas into a house, even if you don’t have pets you’re still at risk for an infestation.¬† Just something to clear up.

So Karen and I did quite a bit of work this weekend.¬† On Saturday we booked a two rooms at a hotel in the area that accepts pets, Sean stayed there with the dogs while Karen and I were bombing the house.¬† He has horrible allergies and enough trouble breathing with basic dust in the area, let alone a chemical bomb.¬† We didn’t go to Walmart and buy some crappy $7 bomb that doesn’t kill anything without having to be used four times a year.¬† Karen purchased a powder called “Flea Busters” that you work into the rug with a broom and then let it sit for 24-48 hours while it works its magic.¬† You then leave the house until the dust settles and begin the daunting task of vacuuming.¬† The problem is the dust takes a lot longer to settle than is listed on the box and with the allergies that all of us are dealing with, the only real option was a two-night stay at the hotel.

We came back after 24 hours to do some vacuuming, while I went around the house with the vacuum Karen got started on the laundry because that room filled up a lot quicker than we thought it would.¬† The dust basically got everywhere and for the sake of killing off any eggs or even the adults, plus the dust from the bomb on the articles themselves – washing everything was the only option.¬†¬† We returned to the hotel a little after midnight, went to our rooms and completely crashed.¬† Two days of moving heavy furniture, breathing in horrible chemicals and just being exhausted in general took it’s toll on us.

Karen checked out of her room at about 8am because she needed to get the dogs back here and then head off to work.¬† Sean and I left our room about 10am, stopped to pick up some breakfast and headed back to the house.¬† There was still some dust in the air and I told Sean to take it easy when we walked in but even that didn’t help.¬† He had a pretty horrible reaction to it and needed to be taken to the hospital.¬† It was a bad asthma attack that seemed to have come out of no where.¬† I noticed he was having some issues when he smelled the dust, I wasn’t expecting it to get as far as it did.¬† He’s doing OK now, he’s got a prescription to work with for his nasal issues, plus he’s got an inhaler.

I’m still rotating laundry, this is the first time I’ve been able to get online in the last four days and that was only to check the time on a few things going on this weekend.¬† I went grocery shopping tonight to pick up some odds and ends for Thanksgiving.¬† Sean and I are going to be here by ourselves, Karen is going up to New York to be with her sister.¬† My father is going to be working and there’s a lot of drama going on with the family (mom’s side) at the moment so I’d rather just not be there – staying here is the more comfortable option for us.¬† So I’m still in the process of cleaning up the house so I have some counter space to work with.¬† There is also a lot of crap on the dining room table but that’s because there’s still some more vacuuming to do.¬† It just requires a lot of heavy lifting so I’m going to have Sean help me out with it tomorrow.

We’re heading back out to do some small shopping tomorrow but that’s only to pick up detergent because there are at least 30 loads of laundry to do and I’m running low.¬† I also need to head to Home Depot to pick up a Lampholder Adapter so I can start decorating outside.¬† I didn’t like having to go outside and plug everything in when we had the lights setup last year, I’d rather just get the converter and work off of the light switch in the house.¬† It’s easier and doesn’t require flipping a switch on the circuit breaker, there’s seriously something wrong with the plug out there.¬† It’s not that we’re overloading it, it’s just been faulty for quite some time now.

Time to rotate some more laundry.

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Posted in Boyfriend, Delmarva, Family, Pets | 7 Comments »

Infestations SUCK!

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

So I have to say it’s been a pretty interesting couple of days.¬† Karen and I are currently working on cleaning out the house so we can drop a flea bomb.¬† There were a few crawling around on Candy, and even more floating around on Princess, we didn’t see it until they both got baths this past week and the fleas just fell off them.¬† Turns out Karen’s room is covered in them which means the rest of the house is full of them.¬† Bella has nothing on her but that’s because she’s been protected with Frontline Plus since the day I got her, but now that we’re aware of the infestation we’re all on our toes and itching like crazy when we go to certain areas of the house.

So her bedroom was cleared out yesterday and we dropped a more localized bomb that she picked up from the pet store, it came highly recommended by a few of the customers and employees in there.¬† It’s good to know that we’re not the only house down here who’s got them – lord knows who else does.¬† So she spent about 3 hours vacuuming the bedroom, dropped the bomb and basically went to sleep in the living room because she didn’t want to go back in there last night – and I don’t blame her.¬† She woke me up about 8am this morning because she was vacuuming up the bomb and now I think she’s going to start doing some laundry so she can begin moving things back into the room so we can now tackle the living room and the hallway.¬† I know that today we’ll also have to do my bedroom and the office – Sean won’t be too happy about it but he has a laptop and is perfectly capable of working in the living room for a few hours.¬† Worse case scenario he goes to the library up the block and gets some work done in the peace and quiet there.

I’ve got to go through a lot of email then get my ass in gear on cleaning up the office.¬† I did the bedroom this past weekend but obviously I’m going to need to vacuum the shit out of it again and then drop the bomb in there – this should just be HEAPS of fun.¬† I can’t even throw the dogs outside today while we’re doing all of this because it’s raining and I don’t have a good sized gate to block off the stairs from Bella charging out of here.¬† I may wind up going to the pet store with Karen to pick up some more of this bomb stuff – maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and invest in a gate to throw up when we get back.¬† I don’t like tapping into the loan money but when you’ve just transferred everything out of Paypal to the bank account you really have no choice in the matter.

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Posted in Bella, Daily, Pets, Stressed | 6 Comments »

Can’t kick the funk…

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

I’m not sure if it’s the family health issues, the lack of a new home or just life in general but I’m in a funk that I just can’t seem to kick.¬† I’ve literally done nothing over the course of the last few days and it’s been bothering the living hell out of me.¬† I still haven’t heard from my father, I was trying to call all week to find out how his colonoscopy went but no one seems to want to answer the phone.¬† I assume that if it were really bad news, I would have heard something from either my sister or my aunt telling me to get back to New York as soon as possible.

Moving down here took a lot of adjusting for me, not only was I starting my life with someone but I was also moving away from everything I’ve ever known, especially just the security of family.¬† Now with my grandfather going through radiation and battling his own cancer, and finding out that my father is 50/50 with colon cancer as well – it’s really striking a nerve.¬† I have cancer on both sides of my family, this is nothing new.¬† My grandfather (father’s dad) passed from leukemia, my grandmother (fathers mom) passed from breast cancer that kind of spread to everywhere else.¬† Now my mothers father is going through it, my mothers sister had thyroid cancer, ovarian cancer and lord knows what else.¬† It has me paranoid to even step foot into a doctors office to see where I rank with this terrible disease.¬† I’m taking the ignorance is bliss route at this point, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what’s going on with my father as soon as humanly possible.¬† I’m going to try calling again tomorrow afternoon when he’s home from work, maybe I’ll actually get an answer this time.

Sean’s “brother” showed up last night for a few hours with his wife, daughter and their new puppy.¬† It was a pretty nerve wracking visit but that’s based on the fact that I’ve never met them before and I know that he’s a big part of Sean’s life.¬† They aren’t literally “brothers” biologically but when you grow up together, and are practically joined at the hip for lord knows how many years, putting them under the title of “brother” just seems to fit, hopefully that clears up any confusion – I know there were a few questions.

But anyway, they hung out here for a few hours and we thought they were going to get a hotel room up the block and then get on the road early the following morning.¬† He decided that he wanted to get down to Florida as soon as possible so they all left (on no sleep) to take the drive.¬† Sean didn’t call him today but I assume that he made it there with out any major issues.¬† I’m sure Sean will call after a few days once they’ve settled in.¬† His brother has already stated that we’ll be going to Florida sooner than we think, I’m just not sure of that 13 hour drive, but it should be interesting.¬† Maybe after the holidays we’ll look into a mini-vacation but who knows what will happen.¬† We may be down there a lot sooner depending on how his father is doing – I just don’t like to think like that.¬† Especially considering he’s battling leukemia as well.

Since I wasn’t really up to cooking tonight Sean and I went to Applebee’s for dinner.¬† We haven’t been there in a while and he’s unhappy with a few things at the moment himself so we took a “date night” just to get out of the house and clear our heads.¬† We enjoyed our dinner then did a little shopping afterwards.

Moving along…I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.¬† UPS should be here with my duvet cover and lamps, that’ll complete the bedroom for now.¬† I bought new curtains tonight because the ones hanging up in there were so caked in dust that even machine washing them shows no hope for them being saved.¬† They also don’t match the new color scheme of the room.¬† I settled on gray/black because that’s Sean’s thing.¬† I personally can’t stand it so I’ve done some bright updating and settled on a white theme that’s turning out pretty nicely.¬† The walls are still a pale gray but it’s really just a backdrop for everything else going on.

So I’m going to hang up the new curtains, vacuum, straighten up some shelves, switch out my summer gear with my winter clothes and then vacuum pack all of the summer stuff so I can store that away.¬† Then it’s off to the market so I can pick up some food for the week and get a few more things for Thanksgiving next week.¬† At this point the only thing we really need for next Thursday is the Turkey and Potatoes, after that I’m covered for dinner.¬† The stuff I’d be loading up on tomorrow is our weekly food plus some dessert based items.¬† I didn’t have enough time to make Pumpkin Pie last year, I also couldn’t find any decent pumpkins and refused to pick up the puree.¬† Yes, I do make it completely from scratch.¬† I’m hoping that changes this year.

Guess I should get ready for bed, it’s pushing 5:30 and I don’t wanna be awake for when Princess starts waddling around looking for food.¬† I typically put on special booties over my foot lotion and Princess smells the mint so she’ll go after my toes.¬† I’m surprised I’ve got all 10 at this point, based on my little history with her.¬† She’s a good dog but OUCH MAN!

Night all (well, morning to the normal sleepers)

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Posted in Boyfriend, Daily, Family, Pets | 3 Comments »

Baked Ziti

Monday, October 15th, 2007

I’m teaching Karen how to cool.¬† Her dog is a pretty picky eater and lately instead of the Meatballs she was eating previously, she’s switched over to Baked Ziti, talk about high maintenance – eh? So she bought all of the cheaper ingredients knowing that it’s just going towards a dog anyway.¬† So I walked her through everything once the pasta was finished cooking and within the next half hour we’ll know if she’ll eat that version or not.¬† The humans in the house, however, are eating the more high end ziti tonight.¬† I’ll throw in some crescent rolls to keep Sean happy and the rest is history…heh.

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Posted in Pets | 1 Comment »

Still Awake…

Monday, October 1st, 2007

I can’t sleep and I hate when this happens.¬† Sean is in the office playing Halo 3, Bella’s snoring her little head off next to me and since it’s after 5:30am, an alarm clock is going off in excess because it’s owner is a dead sleeper who refuses to get out of bed until about 6am.¬† I never thought alarm clocks were made to be that loud but if it’ll wake the dead then it’ll wake the rest of the complex too.

I tried going to sleep about two hours ago.¬† But when you spend time looking at the ceiling and your brain won’t shut up long enough for you to relax then actually falling asleep just doesn’t seem like an option at that point in time.¬†¬† Hopefully this will change soon because I’m sick of being awake at this point.

On Friday I brought Bella in to the groomer.¬† I’m not really happy with the result, but I’m not unhappy either.¬† Knowing that Winter is just around the corner, having her shaved down now seemed reasonable because by December she’ll be back to her usual fluffy self and just some upkeep here and there to avoid heavy matting is all that really needs to be done during the winter months.¬† I asked for my usual puppy cut, cut the nails, squeeze the anals so she doesn’t drag her ass across the floor, thin out the ears and definitely thin out the tail.¬† I leave and hang around for the day until about 2pm when they call to have me come and get her.¬† The groomer comes out with this little tan dog that’s dying to get to me but looks NOTHING like Bella at all.¬† She cut too short around the face but left these fluffy ears so she kind of looks like an alien with a wig on.¬† Her tail was done right though, but they did cut a little too close to the skin and I have to say this is one of the shortest puppy-cuts I’ve ever seen.

So this, to me, explains why she’s been so clingy being as she’s freezing her ass off thanks to the damn weather change.¬† She never usually gets cold, but she’s been shivering lately which has Sean comparing her to a Chihuahua.¬† Based on how thin her face and legs are now, yea I can see the comparison, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be verbalized.

I knew it was going to start getting cooler down here but the 80 degree days followed by 50 degree over-nights are more than enough to drive someone to the point of being violently ill.¬† I know that my nose is starting to run because I’m freezing at night and then sweating my proverbial balls off during the day.

Oh great, now Princess is looking to get into the bedroom.¬† I’m going to force myself to sleep so I don’t have to listen to anymore whimpering.¬† She’s trying to get into Karen’s room but for some reason Karen left her in the living room tonight and I won’t be awake long enough to find out why so I’ll ask later – I guess I only noted it here as a reference for when I get back online this afternoon.¬† I forget things when I’m tired, I always have.

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Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Pets, Stressed | 3 Comments »

I’m surprised.

Wednesday, September 5th, 2007

I have to say that I’m surprised with how well Bella did when Karen’s sister was here this past weekend. I was concerned how she was going to react to the kids because she hasn’t been around them in a while but she was pretty good, and her usual cute self. She attempted to sleep with one of them, he wanted to be left alone so he asked that she be taken off his bed. And when it came to the other, he’s a dog lover by nature so while Bella and Princess kind of took over his bed, he put himself on the floor. I thought that was sweet, but the dogs don’t need to be there either – so I moved them both. Princess wasn’t too happy but it isn’t her bed to make that choice.

Her sister left this morning, but supposedly she’s coming back sometime next week. Her kids start school in a few hours, and next week they already have a day off for the holiday. Then the following week they have a three-day weekend with another holiday. Why do they even bother to start school if they’re going to close down for a few days two weeks in a row?

I probably never noticed that kind of schedule when I was in high school, but I’ll tell ya – thinking back on it now – it was probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of.

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Posted in Bella, Daily, Pets | Comments Closed

It’s a little too early.

Sunday, August 12th, 2007

My schedule has completely changed and I’m still making an attempt at getting used to it. For the last two days I’ve been up between 7:30 and 8am It’s a lot quieter in the morning than I remember but it’s also a weekend when no one is waking up early in the morning to get themselves to work.

My only company at the moment is Princess, she likes to wonder out of the room around 7am or so, so I’ve got her setup next to me. I picked up all of Bella’s things off the floor so she couldn’t eat them, typically that’s the reason we keep a gate in front of the door when it’s open. Princess has this thing where she’ll eat any and everything, food or no food so picking up the kibble and a few bones – not a big deal.

I have a big day of work to get done today, I don’t have much going on other than that. I hit the $1800 for the month and it’s only the 12th so it’s safe to say I’ll reach my $3k goal and even exceed it at this point. That shiny new iMac and the nifty new bed will really come in handy.

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Posted in Daily, Pets, Work | 1 Comment »

Spoiled, Spoiled, SPOILED!

Monday, July 30th, 2007

Dog food can be a completely evil thing. Many dogs, particularly smaller ones, have allergies so the owner is naturally going to look for the food that doesn’t contain any of these allergens. Typically this is more expensive food but I’ll agree that if you love your animal as much as you claim you do, you’ll feed them something that won’t make them sick in excess.

So lately Bella has been very picky about what she eats, or even IF she eats for that matter. Putting chicken down at 10am means nothing to her, she insists on eating about 3AM the following morning after you’ve coaxed her into numerous different plates, she’ll return back to that $2.00 can of CHICKEN, not dog food – I said Chicken.

Candy, Karen’s dog, has been on a high protein diet throughout her entire life. She maybe had dog food twice when she was a baby but since then it’s been home-cooked meals and to a degree, mixed with pure luck, after 16 years she’s still alive. A little senile – yes – but she’s still alive. I do believe this is based on the dog food. Knowing full well that I intend to have Bella for as long as possible I’ve also steered away from dog food but this is only after I’d tried every single available brand that she turned her nose up to.

For some reason, not sure if it’s the weather or just stubborn animals, Candy and Bella have both decided that they no longer want $2 canned chicken. They want home made meatballs. And not just any meatballs, MY meatballs. This means we’re now spending money on 5lbs of meat (per week) and all of the fixings for me to make the family sauce, nope – they don’t like bottled sauce either.

It’s now 3am and I’ve been up for over 16 hours and I’m exhausted, this – however – doesn’t mean anything when it comes to making sure all animals are covered for dinner tonight. I turned 5lbs of chop meat into about 8 pounds of meatballs (once you throw in all the fixings, of course). They’re now in the oven cooking off some of the fat before I throw them into the crock pot where they’ll sit for 10 hours and all dogs will be fed.

This morning, however, I’ll have to then begin making dinner for the humans and I volunteered to make a big turkey dinner. I’m stupid, I know – but my love for Thanksgiving side dishes can really get the best of me. Hrm…I just remembered there’s a few things I forgot to get for dinner. Damn! Guess I’ll have to send Sean out.

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Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Pets | 1 Comment »

I’m stuck.

Thursday, July 19th, 2007

I’m not sure why but for some reason I’m having trouble coding up one of the free templates. There’s a lot of functions options to play with for the widgets. I came across an article where you can use multiple widgets on the site and naturally I’m looking into them considering one of the themes has a hemmingway footer and instead of having the user install excess plugins, I’d rather do it through the new WordPress 2.0 setup with the widgets. I know the sidebar one works fine, it’s just creating the other ones for the footer that are growing to be a pain in the ass. I’ve been working on it for most of the day so I could have at least four solid templates to launch with in upcoming weeks.

Shauna, to answer your question, the downloads will be based on acidgloss.net, but I’ll have them located on blog-ideas.net and even curvy-chick.net just to cross link everything.¬† Either way they’ll be easy to find, trust me.

Other than that, it’s been kind of a lazy day. There isn’t really anything interesting going on. A little bit of rain passed through here today but nothing major. There’s nothing on television and I got no cleaning done, other than a few things in the kitchen before I made dinner. I did a roasted chicken with potatoes and broccoli, turned out pretty good but the white meat was a little dry and that makes no sense to me considering I basted the thing about three times during it’s three hour cook time. There’s a lot of left overs, I had to take all of the meat off the bones to put in a bowl. It’s not worth keeping the bones when the important stuff can easily fit into a bowl for convenience. So Bella is covered on food for the next few days, no one really eats left overs. It’ll save me some money too considering her new love of canned chicken is costing me about $30 a week in dog food where regular dog food is only about $0.60 cents per can – she’d prefer human food.

She got sick this morning, she refuses to eat and then throws up and looks for sympathy. So Sean and I were both sitting on the floor kind of forcing a piece of cheese down her throat, It didn’t work and we just wound up going to bed. We woke up a few hours later and she went right for a piece of cheese. Too much of a brat for me, I swear.

Speaking of brats, Princess loves to go through purses and managed to get into mine. All my gum is gone and all of my receipts are ripped to shreds. She did her damage then parked herself on the couch like she could do absolutely no wrong. She also almost took my finger off tonight going after a piece of food, teeth marks and blood to prove it. Vicious little brat, I swear to god.

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Posted in AGn Designs, Blog Ideas, Daily, Pets, Work | Comments Closed

Cleaning + Stormy Weather + Work = GREAT DAY!

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

I woke up with a mission and the concentration that I needed for the past few days. The kitchen was cleaned up, the coffee table is now cleared off and even the dining room received the touch-up it needed. Tomorrow, or maybe even before I go to sleep, I’ll wind up getting all of my laundry taken care of and I think I’ll float around the house with the vacuum as well considering it’s been a while since that was done.

A rather nasty storm rolled through here this afternoon and I’m happy I’d woken up just in time to be outside for the start of it. Nasty thunder and lightening for a few hours and two very scared puppies because of all the ‘boom booms’ as we call them. I had princess curled up on one leg and Bella basically trying to crawl behind me just for safety. For dogs with such big personalities when someone rings the door bell (bark central!) they’re kitty cats when it comes to thunder – go figure.

Minus the cleaning I had a fairly good day as far as business is concerned. I’m waiting on a few payments from clients but I count that as income for the 16th considering that’s when projects were completed. Now I just have to decide if I’m going to get Sean a Wii or a monitor for our anniversary. He told me he doesn’t want anything but you can’t NOT get someone something – you know?

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Posted in Bella, Boyfriend, Daily, Pets, Work | 1 Comment »

Review: Lhasa Apso resource

Sunday, July 15th, 2007

If you’re looking for a small-breed dog with a lot of attitude then you’re more than likely in the market for a Lhasa Apso. This breed of dog is also known as “The Lion Dog of Tibet” as well as “Abso Seng Kye”. In my eyes, owning a Lhasa has been the best experience in the world. I have a female who weighs approximately 18 pounds but she also eats very well, how could you not in an Italian household? Most Lhasa’s range from 12-15 pounds depending on the sex.

Lhasa Apso A Lhasa Apso is a small, long haired breed that’s friendly but assertive, lively and intelligent. My Lhasa, for some strange reason, has been a high energy furball since the first day I got her but she’s also been a lazy lap dog as well. I’ve done a lot of research on Lhasa Apso’s and while I feel that websites like breederretriever.com are great for pet owners, picking up books from the store are great as well. The information that I found on their Lhasa Apso page was accurate but they also didn’t list quite a bit of important information about the breed. I know that while they were used as a defense against intruders, I also know that they were used as space heaters as well. This may sound strange but I’ve read stories about how holy men and nobles alike would keep multiple Lhasa Apso’s around them while they sleep to act as a heat resource. I can vouch for the fact that my Lhasa retains an awful lot of heat considering if she’s close to you at night you wind up getting very warm, very quickly.

There’s a long time-line associated with this breed, they’ve been around for over two thousand years but only made their way out of Tibet in the 1920’s, at least that’s what resources claim. The Lhasa arrived in Britain in the 1920s and then they were introduced to America in the 1930’s by Suydam Cutting. They were a member of the Terrier group in 1935 but were then reclassified in 1959 to the Non-Sporting Group.

I find my Lhasa to be very affectionate and high energy. While some resources claim that they have low trainability, mine is trained so well to the point that if she had thumbs she could put the leash on herself. It’s great when sites can give you a lot of information but unfortunately the ones I’ve come across are only giving you an average number of what all Lhasa’s can do. My Lhasa interacts well with all animals, resources claim that the breed typically doesn’t. Yes, she is a bit timid around strangers but she also came from a puppy mill so it’s hard for her to trust people, something everyone understands. She can handle cold weather, and if she can’t I do throw a coat on her from time to time, she can also handle heat pretty well but I say if it’s too warm for me to sit comfortably outside, it’s just too warm for her.

Bella A typical Lhasa has long hair, but these are mainly show dogs. I do not know one Lhasa owner that has used their dog for some kind of financial gain so naturally they aren’t going to keep a lot of hair on their dog. Lhasa’s have very thick hair, not fur, so instead of shedding they can easily be matted down and I believe that’s nothing more than cruel, and you can only brush an active dog so often before you decide to take care of them once and for all and shave them down to a more manageable length. I personally puppy-cut my Lhasa every few months so in the long run she’s a short haired dog for me, but that’s based on convenience as well.

Bottom line, if you’re interested in a new pet you should consider looking into all of the different breeds available to you. Resources like breederretriever.com are great because they give you a simple breakdown of every aspect of the dog so you can search through the database and find the breed that’s right for you. Since they do give you such a simple break down I can recommend that after using their site, if you find the breed you like, head down to the library or even move the mouse up to your google toolbar and look up some more information on the breed. A quick break down is great but a decision such as brining a new dog into the home does require you to do quite a bit of research first.

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A pretty sucky day so far

Thursday, July 5th, 2007

I’m not sure if it’s the weather or not but I woke up feeling like complete crap today. My stomach is bothering me, my throat is a little scratchy and I’ve found that if I stand for too long I begin to get dizzy. The smell in the house doesn’t help very much either, multiple wee wee pads down and all of them filled up. Princess, yet again, missing one entirely so now that’s soaking into the rug. Since it’s too warm to open the windows the smell is just kind of lingering and it’s so potent to the point of making me nauseous on top of how bad I was originally feeling. I swear when Sean and I get out of here we’re going to just deal with hard because those naturally would require carpet for me.

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The house of my dreams … doesn’t come easy!

Thursday, June 21st, 2007

While we haven’t seriously considered anything yet, Baby and I are looking to buy a home. Naturally there are a few requirements that must be met before we even step into a place. A minimum of 3 bedrooms (one will more than likely be used as an office), a large kitchen considering that will literally be MY room in the house, a spacious living room that we can fill with over sized comfy furniture and to keep Sean happy – a large garage with lots of storage.

Now, naturally he’d prefer a shed the size of a single-wide trailer just so he can store all of the tools that most men buy and just won’t ever use. Of course, they absolutely need to have it. (Should I note I’d like to live NO WHERE NEAR a Home Depot?). But, back to the matter at hand. I think it’s important that everyone consider utilizing their spaces properly. I hate seeing an unorganized house in complete chaos, I typically tend to clean it for them. Alicia can vouch for this one, I’ve done her dishes just because they were there. A big thing for me, however, is garage storage because you seriously can’t ever have enough of it. With all of the gardening supplies and house-hold tools that you need to keep away from ‘daily life’ it’s important to store it properly. I’d love to have a huge two-car garage but this doesn’t mean that I’d like one side of it to be overflowed with junk. I like organization, I love the look of CLEAN and nothing more. Peg boards for quick pick-up of screwdrivers, hammers and whatever else you can throw on a pegboard. Clear storage bins on an over-abundance of shelving. The idea of having ‘room to spare’ is a great thing for me.

Down here it’s hard to find this kind of space unless you build it yourself. Maybe if Sean and I get lucky and win the lotto we can purchase someone’s old farm land and turn it into the house of our dreams. I know for sure we’re going to need a big enough yard to cover Bella and whatever big dog Sean happens to bring home one night (trust me, he’ll surprise me with one!) I’ll say this much, however, there’s no way in hell we’re hiring the same landscape company that does our complex. When we say cut the grass, we don’t mean drive over it doing 40 miles an hour!

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Why’d the sun come up so quick?

Thursday, June 21st, 2007

I’m running on about two hours of sleep at the moment. In my attempt to wake up in time I wound up laying in bed for 3+ hours fighting to get myself to sleep. So instead of getting the 5 hours I originally went for, I only managed to get less than two. Even coffee isn’t working for me at the moment.

I’m up early because around 9:30am I need to get Bella to the groomer up the street. I figured I’d give myself a wake-up-call around 7:45am so that I can take a shower and fold some laundry before I go. I don’t like leaving the house unless I’ve showered, even if it is just walking up the block. My hair is all over the place and I don’t use a lot of products to get it where I need to be. It’s easier to manage my hair when it’s wet – go figure.

It’s not yet warm enough outside to be annoying, the house is in desperate need of being aired out so I’ve got a few windows open through out the house. I made it a point to not really open up much in the living room, even though that’s where it smells the worst. The last thing I need is to listen to Princess go on one of her barking sprees because of the landscaper going past the house this morning, the garbage man coming in a little while or someone just walking past the house in general. Karen claims that she barks when she’s scared, Sean, Debbie and I all agree that she’s just a brat who was never really told to ‘shut up’ at any point in her life. Bella used to bark at everything, proper training took care of that. Considering Princess has never really left the house (wee-wee pad trained) naturally she’s just a vicious overweight dog who was never socialized. She’s cute sometimes, don’t get me wrong, it’s hilarious watching her waddle her way up the doggie stairs to the couch but that’s just about all the exercise she ever gets. Her sitting on the couch is the equivalent of the mean old lady up the street who can’t stand any kind of noise because she can’t get off her ass to go outside and introduce herself to the kids, she’d rather yell at them instead. It’s just not healthy.

In any event, I’ve got less than an hour to get everything done this morning – guess I should get myself in the shower.

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These people are something else…

Saturday, June 16th, 2007

I’ve had a rather busy day. So busy to the point that I was unable to get any work done for clients or even myself for that matter.

Last night a letter showed up from the main office of the community stating that our yard was in desperate need of some work. For some god forsaken reason this complex is all about vanity, I’m not sure if it’s based on the fact that there are tourists in the area or what but telling us that we have to garden on our own property because it’s ‘offensive’ is completely beyond me.

I’m aware of the fact that a few things did need to be done, I’m not going to deny this by any means. What others fail to realise, however, is the fact that the three people living here work for a living. We’re not lucky enough to be like 80% of the community and live off our retirement funds. Since it’s against complex rules to use any kind of power tools outside past 7pm (I think) it’s not like we can get home or outside in time to get these things done after working our 9+ hour days. It may be cheap to live in Delaware but that’s because your paycheck is where you live. I’m living off a New York based salery, Karen on the other hand – isn’t that lucky.

A landscaper comes in once a week and does the grounds. You have to pay like $35 some odd dollars each month in order for them to do the trim work. This trim-work, however, more than likely doesn’t include weeding and unfortunately there’s a curse on Karen where no plants seem to be allowed to grow. There’s a lot of greenery out there, however none of it is up to the complex’s oh-so-important standards.

So today I was outside for about five hours, that’s 1/2 of a days work – and nope, won’t be reimburssed for it either. I was running around with the weed wacker just so I could make the old-geezer in the main office happy. They also complained that our barbecue needed to be moved because it ‘appears to be in the neighbors yard’, we were no where near the property line with it. I think it’s just that the gardener couldn’t weasle his fat ass through without having to slow the fuck down. Last I heard, you don’t cut grass doing 30 miles an hour through people’s backyards.

So once that was all said and done I wound up sitting on the porch for a few moments and just taking it all in. I only managed to accomplish the front of the house, there are still 3 more sides to take care of, two of which are rather long. My hands were numb because of the vibration coming off of the weed wacker. My legs were sore from the constant getting up and down, which has also completely KILLED my back. I was filthy, covered in grass shavings and dirt. My hair was all frizzed out from the humidity, I was sweating more than any female should and at that point even ice cold water and a cool breeze couldn’t cool me down. All I wanted to do was take a shower.

I come inside to find more piss on the rug from Princess, wet wee-wee pads from Candy and then I wound up doing some cleaning around the kitchen. By the time I did get around to taking a shower it was after 8pm and Sean and I were heading up to Milford to do some shopping. The Wal-Mart down here is only open until 10pm and I do NOT like being rushed. We left the house after 9pm, got up to Milford and since it was a super center, we managed to get some grocery shopping done as well. We get back here a little after 1am and while I’ve had opportunities to get some work done in the last hour, I don’t have the concentration considering my eyes are starting to cross on me.

I just hope that after we finish up the rest of yard work tomorrow, my eyes will be cooperating with me and I can actually get shit done. :ugh:

I’m going to bed.

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