Stupid little rat with legs...

Today was a *gorgeous* day - absolutely divine! I was a good girl and did all the things I was supposed to first thing - exercised the dogs, finished and mailed out some tugs, checked the PO Box, went to the bank, went to the unemployment office, went to the supermarket and then came home. I played with the dogs while doing some stuff outside - it's time to empty the vegetable planters that are done producing so I can put everything away.

After playing frisbee with the Tweak & Ash (thankfully they've stopped crashing into each other when I play them at the same time), I figured I'd let them cool down and play in the pool. Millie & Freddie were out as well, but they were on the other side of the gate that separates the pool from the rest of the deck.

(I just have to interrupt my train of thought here and say that one of the dogs is so totally gassing me out of the freakin' room right now. )

Anyway, after playing for a while, Freddie jumped the gate to join us. This happens pretty frequently - he tries to steal the frisbee out of one of the dog's mouths when they're climbing out of the pool - and usually it's nothing to worry about. Not today.

The little shit jumped over just as I threw the frisbee in for Tweak. He scooted right past me and started walking along the rim of the pool, which is a few inches below but right next to the deck, up until a certain point. Needless to say, he was unsuccessful in walking along the rim not next to the deck and fell into the pool.

I wasn't really worried as he can swim on his own for short distances without my help. I just went over to the stairs and called him over. He was panicking tho' and couldn't hear me. Weirdly enough, he wasn't horizontal in the water, he was vertical. It's like he was walking on his hind legs in the water. Weird.

He went under once, then went under again which succeeded in freaking me out and had me jumping into the pool, shoes and all, to save the little idiot. Thankfully Tweak and Ash are good swimmers and got out like normal since I wasn't paying the least bit attention to them while this was going on.

The stupid little rat with legs was/is fine tho'. (But whichever dog is farting must have eaten something dead to have this kind of torrential gaseous eruption.)

I'm heading down to New Jersey for the 10th Annual Min Pin rescue picnic. It was 11 years ago that we started the Internet Miniature Pinscher Service. I think Millie will be kept downstairs for the picnic since there's usually like 80 dogs or so that attend. She's better with Min Pins than with any other breed, but she's getting older and doesn't put up with as much as she used to. I'll let Freddie (the family Min Pin representative), Tweak & Ash have all the fun. I imagine Tweak will start herding all of the Min Pins at some point in the day and when that happens she'll go away too.

Should be fun!

D

What a cutie...

James Marsden - total freakin' yum. Wouldn't have known his name but I've been seeing him on TV a lot lately and figured I'd put a name with the drool action.

Ash & Tweak are getting their final 32nd wind out of their system by doing box turns off of every piece of furniture, and me, in the living room while playing Crocodiles and Alligators. Gotta love that energy level!!

This weekend I started helping my grandmother weed down her stuff yet again. She's moving into an assisted living facility and I/we will need to pack everything up. Again. Every time my grandmother has moved, I've helped pack her up. I'm getting pretty good at it since she's moved like 4 times in the last 10 years and it's generally just my aunt, uncle & self that do it.

I went over to Dina's house this afternoon to start working with her dog. She was going to sign up for classes and then thought, boy that's stupid. So, for the next 6 weeks I'll be heading over to help her with basic obedience. We worked on sit, heeling and come today. Frisco did fabulously - quite the quick little learner and food motivated, which works very well with clicker training. Eventually I'll get out there with Ash and do all the same stuff! I've been so lackadaisical with his training.

I started writing in my journal again, in addition to blogging. I like going back and reading what I've written. I take very large hiatuses from the hard copy version, only writing when I have something to figure out that I don't want to share with the world or when I'm feeling especially creative and want to write poetry or something. I found a couple of kick ass poems I wrote a long time ago. They make perfect sense to me but since perception is key in everything, I'm sure they'd mean totally different things to different people.

I have a store order to finish, the website to fix and a whole lot of cleaning to do this week. Tomorrow is supposed to be really nice so I'll probably swim the dogs a couple of times. I worked with Tweak on a couple of freestyle moves that I learned from the Apryl & Ron seminar. I have a few things in the works that I'll continue to work on with them. More info on that later - like if/when it's done. :p

D

sometimes life hands you lemons...

It's been that kind of week - Murphy's Law on a rampage like bride-to-be's on the day of the Filene's Bridal sale.

I could be all philosophical and say when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. But I own more shares in lemonade than I care to admit and am tired of the bitter taste in my mouth.

Really what you have to do is just breathe through it. Breathe and dodge. Shit happens. Shit will always happen and really your dodgeball training as a kid will help you more than knowing how to make lemonade. Well, that and a good shower.

I think I popped about 28 new gray hairs this week with all the stress & crap. Most I won't even mention.

My friend's dog passed this week - they think he was poisoned in some way, maybe even from eating mushrooms. Peri was a therapy dog who finally got his own little boy this year. So sad.

Scooby has gone quiet so it doesn't look like anything's happening there. I'll be in NJ next weekend but doubt I'll see him. Another one bites the dust.

Next week will be better, life can't suck for all that long!

So to raise my spirits and mood, I'm heading to G&E's tonight for Great Chow and cigars. :) I love sitting in front of the firepit, there's something so zen about watching flames with people you love to be with. Beer helps.

In good news, AgilityVision.com just picked up Tweak's Tugs. :) A rush order was sent to them this week for their booth at the NADAC Championships. I guess I need to start learning what all this agility stuff means :) So if you're there, talk up the tugs!!

D

got a lot of crap done...

I have been pro-duc-tive. I did actually re-arrange the bedroom on Sunday. Yay for me. :) I'm actually really digging the set up too - no idea why I didn't think of it before!

I FAILED on Sunday tho' when I totally forgot to head down to G&E's to babysit that night. I need reminders for that sort of stuff, like call me a couple of hours before and remind me it's Sunday and I should be driving to your house. I have no concept of days or time anymore, sadly. It's no excuse, I should've had a brain. Thankfully our friend Sarah wasn't doing anything and was able to head over. Also thankfully, she lives closer.

Monday was spent getting orders and samples completed for the mail today. I also cut all the mats and bathed my male cat - that was a ton of fun. Not. I've been catching up on the laundry situation, doing pretty well too, believe it or not. All the dog laundry from the whole freakin' summer is done. I only have 4 or 5 loads of my stuff left.

Speaking of which, I have too many items of clothing and once all the laundry is done, I'm going through everything. Good Will is going to get a few bags of stuff from me. After that I'm going to put all that's left away in drawers like normal people instead of living out of laundry baskets.

Today I went to the post office, did a few errands, stopped by my grandmother's and sliced about 40 yards of fabric for tugs. I have a store re-order I have to get done this week and another potential order coming in from an online agility site that would need to be ready in 10 days or so. Hopefully they'll be able to figure out what they want rather quickly so I'll have some time to make them.

Just for the record, if it's too cold out for me to go swimming, it should be too freakin' cold out for mosquitos to fly around and bite people. Just sayin'...

D

sucker punched by a movie

I've been working on the website today - something happened and all of the changes I made months ago are no longer showing up. So I'm trying to remember what I had where, re-writing the description and explanations and basically bring it back into the world of making sense.

The TV was on in the background - I wasn't paying attention to what was on until some silly dialogue made me look up. I spent the next 2 hours seesawing between crying my eyes out or laughing at clever quips. I just got sucker punched by a movie! P.S. I love you is a movie about a woman who loses her husband to a brain tumor at the age of 35. Before he dies, he sets up a series of letters to be delivered after he's gone - they all end with P.S. I love you.

I wouldn't have watched it on purpose unless I was in the mood for a good cry, hence the sucker punch comment. It wasn't until I was further into it that I started to pick up what it was about and by that time I was hooked. And crying. A lot.

A good line from it was during a breakdown the wife was having, crying on her mother's shoulder, "God. I didn't come here for you to give me some bullshit honest answer. Why can't you just lie to me just once?" It was quite difficult trying to laugh while sobbing my freakin' face off but I managed it somehow.

Last night Dina & I went to G&E's for steak and cake. As always I (we) had a great time laughing and chatting. I think it's mandatory that E & I now end all of our sentences with "We're awesome." I'm not sure how that came about, I mean it's true and all, but y'know, I don't like to brag. lol

Today I swam the dogs, did some dishes, got a bunch of supplies ready for the next Tweak's Tug order, went food shopping, swam the dogs and myself, again and then made dinner. Talk about freakin' yummy! I made a lemon pepper chicken with onions, garlic and this wicked yummy lemony sauce. I also made myself a caprese salad using tomatoes that were perfectly ripe from my garden. De-lish.

Tomorrow is a big cleaning day - I plan on re-arranging the bedroom and hopefully reining in the out of control laundry situation. I probably won't be all that successful but here's to hoping!

D