Why Greyhounds are AWESOME!

     Let me first start off by telling you a little bit about Greyhounds. These amazing creatures are the only dog that are mentioned in the Bible, at least the King James Version. They can reach speeds up to 45 miles per hour in three strides! Greyhounds are originally from either Ireland or Egypt, depending on which side of the debate you are on. They also make great pets for those in apartments, or in big houses, and I'm going to tell you why!

     We adopted our first Greyhound, Doc's Whipper, in 2009, at the begrudging of my husband. He actually wanted a Black Lab puppy, but, I was not wanting to take on the challenge of a puppy with both of us working full time and having 2 kids as well. That's when I thought about the beautiful Greyhounds that I had seen at the Mile High Kennel Club when I lived in Colorado. They were just stunning creatures! I had always thought that these majestic creatures would be so high strung, that they would absolutely need a immense area to run in. When I found our adoption group, Greyhound Crossroads, I started reading more about these wonderful animals. It turns out, that they spend most of their days sleeping! We ended up falling in love with Doc, a beautiful red brindle male who had just turned 2.

How could you resist this face?!

     When we first brought Doc home, we were a little nervous that we would do something wrong. It was almost immediate that he laid down on the floor and "roached," where he turned over and stuck his legs up in the air like a dead cockroach (at least that's how they describe it!). He had found his forever home, and we had found our heart dog!He quickly became our other dog, Lilly's, best friend. We learned so much about Greyhounds in that first few months that you would never learn in a book. For example, did you know that Greyhounds usually don't bark? Doc does, which makes him not the normals. They also LOVE to squish into tiny beds, or at leas ours do. Greyhounds are also considered the cat of the dog world as they do like to clean themselves. They don't really have a smell to them, so only need baths every few months or less. (We give our Greyhounds a bath about once a quarter, sometimes only twice a year!) Greyhounds are also low shedding, and are usually very good for people that have dog allergies because they don't have very much dander. The down side to Greyhounds are that, sometimes when they come straight from the track, they don't know house manners. Things like walking up stairs, and not grabbing something from the kitchen counter are foreign concepts to them so they do need to be taught house rules, and given encouragement to try new things. They are also prone to bone cancer called Osteosarcoma. Some larger vets may offer cancer treatments for this type of cancer, while smaller vets may not offer these treatments. Greyhounds also need dental care, and need an experienced anesthesiologist as they are prone to complications with anesthesia.

     There are quite a few Greyhound adoption groups around the country, and if you need help finding a group, I would be more than happy to help you find a group in your area! Overall, these retired racers really just want to find a couch to curl up on and call their own. They don't call them the 45 mile per hour couch potato for nothing!

I wish I was my dog

Doc and Dusty have the EASIEST lives in the world. I guess they deserve it tho.

Harvest weigh in... with no weight! :-P

So.. I don't have anything coming out of my garden yet, but, we're getting closer!

Here are the cukes this morning. They're really starting to get big!! They do have flowers, but they're inside the tangled mass of vines. :-P

Remember that ity bitty bit of watermelon vine from last week? Yeah... that's this week! And this is inside...

Monks pumpkins are growing well...

and it finally has a flower!! I'm pretty sure that this is a male flower tho... so females can't be far behind.

The strawberries runners have runners! I'm not quite sure if I should cut these off or let them go. :-/

The tomatoes are continuing to get bigger and bigger! We're going to buy some more cages on pay day. They keep SHOOTING up! There is considerable size difference in just a couple of days with these guys. It makes me really happy that we are getting closer to having something edible from our garden.

The corn is getting bigger as well! Should be about another month and we should have some fresh corn on the cob!! WOOOO!

In other news... I've got about 50 newly hatched snails. I gave away 6 (I think) egg clutches and still have about 8 more. Apparently they are starting to hatch as well. The eggs that have already hatched for me are purple and ivory. The ivories are so darling! I did keep another clutch... and I'm thinking about keeping one from Bugs tank as well. She might have some nice blues! That would be really awesome.

Monk has been doing a summer "refresher course" on 6th grade. We worked on some math problems today and he found 2 incorrect answers on the answer sheet! Good job Monk!

I'll be ordering more supplies for Charwood Candle in the next couple of days as well. Still not exactly sure what I'm going to order. I guess I better nail that down before I go to order, eh? We still have some of the others left, so if you want to know send me an email here and I can let you know what we have left. :-)

Other than that I think we're pretty much done with news! :-D

I hate the cold!! and other news

So, just so we're clear here, I grew up in Ohio. It's cold in Ohio. We like to joke that there are 4 seasons in Ohio; cold, winter, construction, and almost warm. That being said. I DO NOT LIKE BEING COLD!

When I moved to North Carolina I got on the plane in Cincinnati, Ohio and it was 32 degrees. I had my "Eskimo" coat, my cat, and my Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide as carry ons. I made a stop in Atlanta I think it was, and then boarded a small plane to fly to Wilmington, NC. When I stepped off the plane in Wilmington, North Carolina, it was 72! I was in HEAVEN! That was almost exactly 4 years ago today! Sheesh! I wish it were like that today! No sir! It's was a beautiful 48 degrees this morning! FORTY-EIGHT! NO! This can't be right! when I first got here I was walking on the beach with no shoes and a tank top on! How can this be?! *sigh*

Yes, I realize that 4 years ago my body was used to always being cold most of the time. I realize that if I went to Ohio right now that I would turn into a Popsicle and die because right now in Ohio it is 36 and it is 45 here... wait... it got colder?!?! *sobbing* I'm not liking the fact that I'm wearing my fleece Eeyore pajama bottoms and fuzzy Halloween socks to try and stay warm. I DO like the fact that I just made myself a pipping hot mug of spiced apple cider! YUM!

I always feel bad for Doc and Dusty this time of year as well. Greyhounds don't like the cold either. They don't have a lot of hair to protect them from the cold. They don't like a lot of heat either because they can get heat exhaustion so easily. Basically, they need to retire to Northern Florida with the rest of the old people. I'm kidding! My friend Keonas husband Bob makes fun of us all the time because we put clothing on our dogs. Just Doc and Dusty tho. Lilly does have a shirt, but that was because when she first got here she had no hair, and we didn't have any trees in the back yard so we were worried about her getting a sunburn.

In other news!! I've decided that I'm going to link up with Giveawayscout! It's a place where you can find different giveaways! They had contacted me some time ago about linking up with them, but I just hadn't yet! I guess I should just start trying to find more places for giveaways, eh? :-)

What kinds of things would you guys like to see for giveaways??

Yeah yea yeah.... I know! Sheesh!!

So, as some of you have noticed, I haven't posted in a while. I can explain! It's a legit reason I swear!!

Last week it rained every day (no joke) for almost an entire week! It started on Monday and didn't end until about Saturday. It was terrible!! No joke!

I did get a bit of a night out with the girls tho. (I had written a nice blog entry about all of this, but, it disappeared!! :-( )My favorite Nicole graciously invited me and a bunch of other girls to join her at Chili's for a girls night. Of course, I ended up going to APPLEBEES and then couldn't understand why I couldn't get checked into Chili's on foursquare. (DUH!!!) I got to meet a bunch of fantastic ladies and I got to have some adult conversation with someone other than my husband. It was fantastic I say!! I ended up having Salmon with broccoli and brown rice. It was super yummy, but I couldn't eat it all, so, I brought it home. Of course Bug decided that what I brought home was for her, and she stole all of the broccoli. It's okay. I don't mind sharing broccoli with my little picky eaters! :-)

Monkey got $40 from the Tooth Fairy for his very last tooth, and it has been BURNING a hole is his pocket for some time now. He did spend a little bit of money at his school book fair. I got very excited when he told me that he wanted to take some money to buy something. I thought just maybe he would buy a book! Alas, it was not meant to be. He bought a calculator that looks and smells like chocolate and a pencil sharpener. *sigh* He decided last week, when we went to pick up a bag of dog food that he just simply couldn't live without an African Dwarfed Frog. Now, don't get me wrong. They are incredibly adorable and docile. He picks out the smallest frog in the tank, and carry's his new prize to the register. He plops down $5, and even got some change back! He was very thankful that I bought his new pet, Hopper, some yummy food as well as some weekend feeders for the snails. (Which are getting REALLY big by the way!!)

Monday (the 4th) Monkey woke up and said "My throat hurts." That was all it took. He never complains about things like that. The last time he said something like that his blood pressure was thru the roof and he didn't have a bowl movement for 3 days! (It was terrible and he missed a WEEK of school!!) So, we went to the Doctors and wouldn't you know it, he had the flu!! So, one pack of Tamilfu later, and a note to go back to school the next day, and we were off and running! Of course, then on Friday, he decided to tell me that he's had diarrhea for 3 days! SHEW! This kid is killin me! LOL

Well, we decided that we were going to trade in our Pleco that we bought back in July for something that wouldn't poop as much. (Seriously... Spike pooped.... A LOT!!!!) So, we put him in a 1 gallon ice cream bucket and took him to our local pet/fish store and traded him in on a Corydora Catfish (Cory Cat) whom Monkey named Cory. I think I might have inadvertently caused Cory some harm today. The filter was running really slow and I decided that I would clean it and put it all back together, so I took about a half a gallon of water out and cleaned everything up, and then I put some rather warm water back in the tank. I didn't think it was THAT warm, but poor Cory came barreling out of his little hidey-hole and didn't look like he was doing so well. He floated for a little bit, and didn't move for about a minute, and then he went down to the bottom of the tank where he stayed for quite some time. I thought he was going to die!! I thought I had done Cory in! Nope! He's back in his hidey-hole after a bit of normal swimming. I just hope that in the morning I don't find half eaten bits of Cory in the tank.... :-/

I also have been a bit under the weather. On Wednesday I went to wake Sam up for work and I walked in the bedroom and felt like someone had skewered my from back to front. It was terrible! I couldn't breath in very much. I thought maybe I had pulled a muscle, took some Ibuprofen and laid down for a while after the kids went to school. Of course my wonderful 68 year old Philippine neighbor told me she could come over and rub some liniment on my back and I would feel better in no time! I love this lady to death, but I don't know that I want her rubbing some chicken poop on my back that she brought from the the Philippines!! (Okay, I don't know that it's chicken poop... but I have no idea WHAT it is, tho it's probably better for me than the meds the Dr prescribed!) So, I go to the Doctors (I joke with them that I deserve my own parking spot there.) and meet this fantastic guy! He, of course, was my very capable Dr. Perry! I think I now want to follow this man to whatever office that he is practicing in. He was that great! FANTASTIC guy! I wanted to pick him up, put him in my pocket, and drive home. I love him! Anyways! He said he thinks I have Pleurisy. What that is, is that at some point in time I had some sort of infection or something in my lung, and that my Pleura are rubbing together and they hurt. (I would make a wonderful Doctor wouldn't I?!) I have a follow up appointment with Dr Hotty (Or at least that's what the receptionist and the office manager and I have named him. His real name is Dr. Jones. Dr. Hotty is a better name tho.).

On a happier note!! I have a WONDERFUL person making over my blog!! It will be the first time that this blog has seen a new layout, background, anything, since it's birth! How terrible is that?? I'm such a bad blog-mom I swear! I can't wait to reveal it to you guys!! As most of you know, I'm not a very girly girl, but, she's doing a fantastic job of everything so far! I sent her about 2397234983 pictures for her to use. I just know that what she comes up with, you all will love, but even if you don't, I will and really that's all that matters!! ;-)

Anyways! It's 9PM and Sam and the kiddos are watching Wackos' Wish on Netflix and I can hear Pinky and The Brain planning to take over the world, so I should probably go spend some time with them before my

*whisper* Have you heard what her hobby is?! Weirdo!

So, as I said yesterday, I have a "strange" hobby. Most people don't understand why I love my hobby, or even find it interesting, but I have so much FUN with it!

I know what you all are saying right now.. "Can you just get on with it?! Tell us what it is already!"

Okay. My strange hobby is.... aquatic snails. I know it sounds really strange, but they really are so interesting to watch! I know you think that they don't move very fast because their land cousins don't, but, they're pretty quick! They also do lots of funny stuff. They will go up to the very top of the tank and "parasnail" to the bottom. They also like to play in bubbles. Another friend of mine does this too, and one time we were watching her snails get on top of the bubble wand, have it float them to the top, have the filter push them to the other side of the tank, and then parasnail to the bottom and do it all over again! It was really cute!

We've even named our snails, we have Talula, Stripes, Heart, Krabs, Spunky, Rainbow and Sandy. Talula, Heart, and Sandy are all Ivory (white), Stripes, and Krabs are purple, Spunky is blue and Rainbow is gold. Now, I have at least one female in there, and she(they?) have been laying eggs at the top of my tank. When they do, I take the eggs off the side of the tank, wrap them in a paper towel and put them in a zip lock baggie with a damp paper towel and put them in our other tank under the lights. The damp paper towel helps keep the eggs moist so that they can incubate and hatch baby snails! I have no idea how many baby snails I currently have, it's a bunch tho! I've managed to hatch 3 clutches (that's what you call the eggs) and I would guess there is somewhere between 50-125 baby snails in there right now! I have 2 more clutches incubating, and another was just laid last night. I have some people that are very interested in obtaining some of these snails and others I can sell online and to local pet stores.

I know that my hobby isn't for everyone, but I love it. I find them fascinating little animals, and they have so much more personality than fish! I admit, we have 2 tanks, a 20 gallon and a 30 gallon, and the 20 has 7 snails and a Betta (named Blueberry) and the 30 has 3 adult guppies, 3 juvenile, and 7 or 8 guppy fry with a bunch of baby snails and Spike the plecostomus (algae eater). The guppies are Bugs, the Betta is Monkeys, and the snails are mine. I guess that leaves the pleco to be Sams. I think they share the same attitude... hide until the sun goes down. LOL

Anyways, I think that's all for today! I've got a busy day of laundry and dog bathes for today!!  

Home From Vacation!!

So, we had a great time on vacation. Tho it was a crazy crazy ride I tell you!

Thursday(22July) Mom called and said that because of Tropical Storm Bonnie, that she thought that we should leave on Friday (23July) instead of Saturday like we had originally planned. While this was a fantastic idea, it was sort of last minute for me. I was going to do a bunch of laundry on Friday and leave on Saturday. This left me in quite the predicament! That meant that I needed to go home (we were out having dinner) and pack for our entire family!

We get on the road after I couldn't sleep all night and finally went to bed at 3AM. We drive all day, and get to Montgomery Alabama about 9 that night in th pouring rain. needless to say I crashed and burned that night in my discounted (plus free upgrade!) LaQuinta room! I don't remember much of the room, other than the kids jumping all over the beds while watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars until my eyelids closed and then there was peaceful darkness!

The next day we get back on the road for another 10-12 hours of driving. I must say, the drivers in Texas are CRAZY! The road conditions are FANTASTIC! I just couldn't get over how their lane markers were the little reflectors! Then it started raining when I was pulling into my moms town. I was not exactly happy! I WAS happy to finally be off the road for a while.

We got to visit with family which was totally awesome. We went to the Houston Space Center which was also awesome. We got to go swimming every day in Moms pool. We all got tans. Some of us more than others. Sam and Bug are darker complected than Monkey and I, so, they totally got darker than us! Monkey and Sam both got Swimmers Ear, tho Sams' was MUCH worse! I think one of my favorite days of the trip was when we all went to IKEA! Sam has decided that he likes it, which makes me about the happiest person in the entire universe! Why, might you ask? Because IKEA is just about my favorite place to be. I could spend an entire years salary there and not blink an eye! (Which isn't exactly a good thing...) I've found all kinds of things that I want to do with the house now! (More on that another day!) Bug lost 2 teeth, and the Tooth Fairy brought her $9 in total. (Inflation is CRAZY these days!!)

We then drove from Houston to the Memphis area to visit my sister. There Kris and I chatted, and picked up some steaks for dinner that night. Kris told me that my steak was too rare and I thought that it was just perfect! The kids got to go to the skating rink. Monkey and Bug weren't exactly graceful, but, Bug had fun but her "tooshie" hurt afterwards!

From there we left to drive home. We finally got home around 2AM. We walked in and had a small reunion with the doggies and fell asleep snuggled in our own beds. I'm sure that I'm missing HUGE chunks of what happened, but there will be more another time!

Day 6: Whatever tickles your fancy

So yes... I missed a day yesterday, so it will actually be 31 Days of Me! LOL

Whatever tickles my fancy... hmmmm... My house tickles my fancy! I guess I will talk about my house. We've lived here for a little less than a year. The end of this month will be a year. We have such wonderful plans for this house. I'll share some of them with you! :-)

(Pay no mind to the date, it's wrong. These were the pictures that we took when we were buying it.)

Here is the front of our house.

What we would like to do is this: rip out all of those horrible hedges. They stink for one thing, and for another, they're a pain in the arse to maintain! So, we're going to rip those out. Then, we are going to build a new front porch from the edge of the current porch, to the end of the 3rd window. Basically following the ^ in the house. On either side of the porch, we will be planting 3 Josee Reblooming Lilac in the front. One in front of the single window on the left hand side of the picture, and two on the other side, one of which will be right outside one of our bedroom windows. I'm not sure if I want to put in a porch swing or some rocking chairs and a table between. There will be some other plants up there too, but, we just haven't figured out what we want there yet, other than the Lilacs.

Next is the living room. (Yes the picture is fuzzy....)

Yes, the walls are painted Brick Red and Dark Brown. We have plans to paint this room a light green color to go with our black couch and love seat. There really isn't a whole lot to change here, other than the paint, maybe put some new trim, or possibly some new tile in front of the front door. Which would be nice.

Here's the Master Bedroom. (By FAR the worst room in the whole house!)

Yeah, so, those pictures on the wall, the previous owners painted it a horrible sponge paint, of light brown on the bottom and dark brown on the top, well, the failed to move any of the pictures on the walls, so, amongst the horrible paint, is touch-up horrible paint. We call it the "diarrhea room" because it literally looks like someone has thrown poo all over the walls. It's terrible!!!!!! They even had CONTACT PAPER on the windows to help black out the light from the lap post that's on the corner of the property. *shudder*

We're going to paint this room a nice robins' egg blue, maybe just a little bit darker than robins' egg blue. I would like to get white bedding and repaint our dressers white, and the trim the same blue as our room, and white curtains. Sam says he doesn't really like the idea, but I do. He thinks that because our master bedroom and bath are connected that we would have to carry the "theme" into there, which I tell him that we don't have to. I want to do the exact opposite in there. Everything pretty much white with blue accents. Of course, I want to put new trim in the bathroom because everything is trimmed in icky 80's looking brass. I want everything to be stainless steel or silver.


The kitchen.

So, the kitchen isn't that horribly big, but it's not tiny either. We want to repaint it. I'm not sure what color yet. We actually want to build onto the house as well. We would like to add a dinning room off the back of the kitchen, where the windows are, on the left side of the picture. We would then turn the dinning room into an office/den type area. I would like to take out the door from that section of the house, and put in a nice picture window possibly, and add a deck to the back of the house between the house and the new dinning room. I was thinking of a light yellow for the kitchen. It's currently a burnt orange color sponge painted with a creamy orange on the top. It's the most tolerable room that was repainted by the former owners. They still did a horrible job of it though. We also want to take out the small counter right beside the laundry room entrance and make it into a pantry. We have PLENTY of cabinet space, but, I had thought about taking out the bar to open it up a bit. Not sure if we are still going to do this or not.

The last room that I would like to do anything with as of right now is the Laundry room. Not much to do in there.

What I would like to do in here, other than get one of those really awesome front loading washers and dryers, is paint it a deep sky blue color and get some boarder to put around the whole thing. Except I wouldn't put the boarder on the top of the wall, I would put it about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way up the wall.
I was thinking about something like this border, considering it's also our "dog room" as well as our laundry room.

It's kinda cute. But you never know what I will actually put up there. Until we get it all painted and done, there's still time to change my mind! LOL

Wordless Wednesday!

We adopted Doc in September of last year. Doc is a Retired Greyhound, who would have had a very successful career if he wouldn't have had an injury (or so his former owner told us! LOL). We adopted him from Greyhound Crossroads, which we still are affiliated with. Great group of people! Recently Doc celebrated his 3rd birthday, and we had a nice little party for him. Here is one of the only pictures I got.

New friends!

So, as some of you know (mom), I have blogged for a very very long time. THIS blog only started recently, but I've been keeping blogs since Bug was just a wee little thing. My Mommy got me started back in 2004. That blog is long gone now, tho I still have it archived for my personal entertainment. Recently, I decided that I needed to reach out, and get to know, more military spouses blogs. Some of them I've been following for a while, some I just found. I've added a lot of people to my blog roll. I think the best thing about my blog roll is that all I need to do is look at it and I can see who's posted a new blog! Of course, that means that I have to come to my own blog to see who's posted a new one, but that's fine! :-)

Some of these women are braver and stronger than I could ever imagine being. My hats off to you, and I commend you for your strength. I cannot imagine what these women are going through, but my heart aches for you none the less.

I've found more things to do in my quest to make the house look mom-ready! All 3 dogs need baths, and Lilly needs her nails trimmed!! *She's got Velociraptor talons, I swear it!* That will get done later in the week (dogs seem to get dirty quickly,especially the white one!), except for Lilly's talons nails, they need done ASAP. She HATES to have her nails trimmed. Of course, I think that sort of stems from the fact that ONE time, I accidentally quicked her. (Sorry puppy!) Sam wants to get a picture of the 3 dogs all together, just them, to put on our mantle. His thinking is "They're part of the family too!" which is true. I just have NO idea how we are going to get 2 Greyhounds and an American Eskimo to all sit still and stay in the same place long enough to get a good picture of them for the mantle! I do have one picture of them that is really cute tho. Our dogs, just like us, are very strange characters. They LOVE fruits and veggies! They will all sit in front of Sam and patiently wait for him to drop some apple or banana their way. While I'm making dinner, they're always waiting for me to throw an errant potato or slice of celery at them. Well, one day, Sam was eating and apple with PB. They were all standing right in front of him just staring. You know the kind of staring that makes you feel like you've got a pork chop tied around your neck, that was it. Well, I stood on a chair and took a picture of them, and it's actually a very cute shot.

Okay. I've got laundry in, waiting for it to dry so I can fold it and put MORE laundry in. Sam's still sleeping (I wanna sleep like him! *pout*) so I have to wait until he gets up to run the vacuum and carpet cleaner. I guess that means that I can make a complete bit of a mess of my kitchen and throw some Amish bread in the bread machine and clean the fish tank as well. Man oh MAN! Today is going to be busy busy busy!

Julie and Julia

So, as of late, I have become a little bit of a Domestic Diva. I've learned how to make Amish bread (partly in the bread machine, of course), I've learned to cook more than roasts and soup beans in my crock pot, and I've (sorta) learned how to sew. I've kept the house fairly clean, been shopping and recipe swapping, and have even gone out to brunch! I've learned the best way to get stains out of clothes, and the quickest ways to iron a shirt, and which fabric softner works, and smells, the best!

Tonight we watched Julie & Julia. It was a pretty good movie. I love food, and apparently it really loves me, it likes to stick around. (Bah duh duh!) I did some laundry while watching it as well. Monkey had an accident again, despite going to the bathroom right before he went to bed. It happens every now and again, but I try not to dwell on it and just wash the sheets. I never ridicule or make fun of him. It's not his fault that the muscle just hasn't developed yet and there's honestly nothing that the doctors can do about it. (We've been to one... said it's normal.) Monkey and I made his bed, I grabbed him a comforter since his hadn't made it's journey through the washer and dryer yet. Both of the kiddos are now sleeping peacefully in their beds while visions of sugar-plums dance through their heads. *Yes, I know it's not Christmas* While all of this is wonderful, I have a rather busy week ahead of me.

First on the agenda, deep cleaning the dinning room carpets! You guessed it! I never got to it on Friday with all of the commotion of going to appointments and whatnot. So, I said I wanted it done by Monday, so it will be done by tomorrow! Then, I need to finish up the laundry. I've also got to go to the grocery store and figure out something for dinner, and make another loaf of bread. I think that will keep me busy for the majority of the day. I've also got to slip in a workout as well!

Tuesday brings another day of busy-ness. I want to wash all of the windows, at least on the inside and clean the curtains. (What curtains that we do have!) Then I want to clean out the cabinets and rearrange every thing, and also clean the cabinet doors as well. (That means upper AND lower cabinets.) Also fit in a work-out and made dinner as well.

Wednesday, I believe I will wash the sheets (for my parents), and the blankets in the dogs crates as well. (No, not together Mom...) More than likely the blankets that go in the living room as well. I will more than likely vacuum and dust as well. (Hopefully) Also, clean both bathrooms, sweep and mop. Did I mention work out in there at all? Oh... and Girl Scouts!

Thursday, I and going to sweep and mop the kitchen. Since the kitchen gets used so much, the floor can get rather icky, and even with mopping it, sometimes there is still some gunk left on the floor, so I'm going to scrub it with a scrubby sponge. I haven't done that in a while! (Oh yeah... and work out!)

Friday is pay day! (Hooray!!) So, I would like to pick up some sheer material and a curtain rod for the dinning room and make a curtain for the sliding glass door, get Bug a new set of blinds, and maybe even make some curtains for her room as well. Also, I will more than likely pre-make the apple pie that I want to have for dessert for Saturday, which is when my parents will be here! Shew!!

Saturday morning, I'll throw the beef Burgundy in the crock pot for dinner, and relax a bit before I have to pick up my parents at the local airport at 11! Shew!!! I have a VERY busy week ahead of me! Here's to accomplishing it all! Now it's off to bed to read a bit and slip off to Never-Never Land in the arms of my wonderful husband!

By the way, I forgot to mention that Friday was my FANTASTIC step-dads' (That's you Kevin) birthday! Hope you had a good one, and glad you liked the cards! :-D*

Merry Christmas... and all that happy jazz.

So, Christmas was here and gone. We had a pretty good Christmas. Living with only one income in the house has been kind of hard! I did find a new job, and I start on the 29th! (Hooray!) We set a pretty strict budget this year, and came in just barely over! I achieved that by using online coupons whenever possible. Sams' birthday was on the 18th, we had Christmas on the 25th, our anniversary is on the 29th, and Monkey's birthday is on the 31st!  We have a pretty busy December!
The kids were really pleased with their Christmas bounty. They both got DSi's. If you don't know anything about Nintendo DSi's, oh man! I would suggest getting one! They have 2 cameras on them, so you can take pictures of yourself, or outside your DSi. The ones that the kids got came preloaded with a few games and such. Now that we have 4 Nintendo DS/DSi's in the house, we can all play our own games, or, we can use the chat feature and chat with each other. (Yes, I know this is the lazy mans way! *hehe*) They also got some new clothes and some toys. They also got a gift card each, which was promptly spent getting toys and other various things that they deemed as necessities after the holidays. My best friend got us a portrait package from Sears. We're pretty happy about that, the kids would rather have the presents tho.
Sam got himself a very nice guitar for his birthday/Christmas/anniversary present. It's black Fender and it's an acoustic/electric guitar. Maybe next year I will get him an amp! For my Christmas/anniversary present, I got a sewing machine! It's been a very long time since I've used one, and so we just simply bought an inexpensive one. Hopefully, someday, I can be as good as my mom. She used to make things for us all the time. I remember her making me a pilgrim costume for Halloween one time, complete with the white bonnet and apron! More recently, she made a clown costume (which is REALLY awesome, by the way) and a vampire cape! I'm sure she has made other things as well, but, I just don't know about them.
I have already found some really neat things that I want to try to make. Hopefully, I don't screw them up. I have my eye on a couple books that I would like to get. Both the kids would like to learn how to sew as well. This gave me quite the surprise from Monkey. He is begging to have a Sock Monkey kit for his birthday. I would say that we may just have to oblige him that request. My mom made him a Sock Monkey a very long time ago, but, Lilly, his dog, tore it up.
Other than that, things have been going pretty well here. Sam is still working on getting out of the Marine Corps. That seems like a never ending project itself! It seems like it has taken forever for things to work themselves out, but, we have been assured that we're close to the end. We're figuring that it will be at least another 6 months before he gets out. In a way, that's the hardest part, not knowing. We don't know when he's going to get out, so he can't look for a job. Nobody will even consider him unless he's 90 days from getting out. We're in the process of trying to save up a years worth of expenses right now. We refinanced the house and his car, both with a better payment. Unfortunately, we didn't win the Powerball last night either. Congrats to the lucky winner in KY. We sure could have used that $128,600,000! I'm sure alot of people could have.
Anyways, It's Sunday Funday here, and I'm behind on laundry and dishes, so it's time to get back to that! I hope that everyone had a great Christmas, and from my family to yours, Happy New Year!

Black Friday

So, yesterday was Thanksgiving. We stayed at home, just Sam, the kids and I. It was strange actually. This is the first Thanksgiving with all of us together, with no traveling. I cooked a turkey breast because there was really no reason for us to cook an entire bird. It would have been too much for the four of us to eat in a reasonable amount of time. I also made sweet potatoes for the very first time! I know that seems like such a strange thing to have never made for Thanksgiving, but, in all honesty, I've never actually made a Thanksgiving dinner by myself! We've always gone to my moms house. This year my mom is in Texas, my one sister is moving to Tennessee, my other sister and brother are the only two left in Ohio. We did get a call from my sister-in-law and brother. They wanted to talk to the kids and say hello. They missed them. I miss my family too. I'm not sure if we will be able to go to Ohio for Christmas or not.

Sam is out shopping for Black Friday. He ran into his first snag. We were going to get another crate for the Greyhound that we would eventually like to adopt. PetSmart advertising stated that they had wire crates on sale for 50% off. Great deal! Sam gets there this morning, and it's the crates that are a size down from what we would need that are on sale! Ugh! So, he is leaving there to do some other shopping. I guess we will see how it works out!

H.R. 3501, the HAPPY Act

Well, those of us that have animals might be able to legally claim them on their taxes!

According to this bill, pet owners would be able to get a tax deduction of up to $3,500! It would help owners with things like vet care, heartworm and flea medication, and even food!

This makes me very happy, as I'm sure that it will make other responsible pet owners happy as well! We love our dogs and, for us, they are a part of the family. I'm glad that they are finally thinking of pets as part of the family!

Greetings!

Well, life has been puttering along here in the Charwood home. We have settled into a routine that lets us do the things that we need to do and have some family time at the end of the day! That makes me quite happy!

This past weekend we went to Myrtle Beach for a greyhound convention called BeachBound Hounds. It was alot of fun! We got to spend some time learning about Greyhounds and got to meet alot of other people with Greyhounds! We had pizza on the beach at sundown and then drove home!

We have plans to go to another aquarium next weekend. If all goes well we will get to see some more fish and dig around for sharks teeth! They also have an albino alligator at the one that we are planning on going to! My best friend is so scared of alligators, so I will have to take a picture for her!

Monkey and Bug are doing well in their new school. Bug has made alot of friends and Monkey is slowly making friends as well. Monkey is also in Cub Scouts this year! Sam volunteered to help out with this and is excited to start helping these young boys learn skills that will help them in life. Bug is awaiting Girl Scout Daisies to start. We're just waiting for her troop to start up. She is really excited. That means popcorn and cookies this year!

Sam bought me a new crockpot last night and I got to make a nice pot roast today. I put some onions, carrots, potatoes, the meat, some onion and mushroom soup mix and some tomato paste with some water in before the kids went off to school, let it cook all day, and viola! When we sat down to dinner the meat was so tender that it actually flaked off when you ran your fork down the side! I had a heck of a time trying to get it out of the crock to cut up and put on plates!

Monkey has developed a fear of the 'boogie man' being under his bed, so, today I went and got him some storage bins to go under his bed and a nice blue dust ruffle to hide everything under there. He went to bed with just a slight disagreement because he had to go to bed 15 minutes early for getting in trouble. We shall see tomorrow if this idea has worked or not!

Well, until next time my faithful readers! The husband is snoring, one dog is passed out on the couch, the other in the bed, and both the kids are snuggled safe in their beds, so, now it's time for me to slip in and get a couple hours of sleep so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow!

Newest Family Member

So, we officially have a new family member! His name is Doc's Whipper. He's a retired racing Greyhound that we rescued from Greyhound Crossroads. He's such a sweet boy that we have decided to call Doc. (Or Doc-er Do!) The kids absolutely love him, and he loves them too. Lilly isn't quite sure about this very tall dog that has invaded her house. She will give a warning bark when she thinks that he is getting too close, and will give a nip if he doesn't heed her warning. It doesn't seem to phase him much and he continues to stay close to either me or Sam. She does seem a little jealous, but, she will come to love him as part of the family, just like all the rest of us, in time.

We've run into our first "problem" already this morning! While it's not really a problem at all, it could become one very quickly if we don't figure out a solution. We got up to start our morning routine and Doc was doing very well. We let both Lilly and Doc sleep in our room and have not had more than a couple barks from Lilly to tell Doc "You are not allowed in my bed, go sleep on the floor!" He doesn't seem to mind sleeping on the big fluffy bed that we have for him on the floor. Well, Sam got up to let the dogs out to go potty. It is raining outside. Lilly just runs out the back door and does her business. Doc, on the other hand, stops at the back door and looks at Sam like he's lost his mind! We even tried putting him on a leash and taking him outside under an umbrella. No luck! He will need to go out to use the bathroom about 15-20 minutes after he eats, so, we haven't fed yet today. It's only 8:30am so, it's not like they're going to starve to death.

Other than that, things are pretty good! I will learn about my fate at work on Wednesday. I'm not so worried that I'm freaking out, but I am a little worried. If we could afford it, I would just stay home. Someday!

New baby.

Well, Sam and I have decided that we don't want to have any more children, and if we do, it's going to be quite some time before we do. (Think 5 years or so.) So, we decided, along with the kids, that we were going to adopt a dog. It's been a dream of mine to have a retired Greyhound for a very long time. I think it's horribly sad that alot of these animals are put to death after their racing careers are over, simply because they don't have someone to take them and love them as part of their family.

Lilly, our American Eskimo dog, she is very high energy. We go outside and play with her and take her for walks, but you can almost tell that she wants another dog to play with. When the neighbors have their dog in the back yard they run up and down the fence line just wagging their tails and playing. It was a decision to bring her home a "brother" as well.

I had been watching two different Greyhound rescue sites for the last few weeks, and Sam and I had fallen in love with one. Before we had really made the decision to go forth with the adoption, he was placed on hold pending adoption. We were both kind of sad, but if he got a good home, then it was great for him!

We took the kids to the ER for the rash that they have, because it spread from Bug to Monkey and Monkey's had gotten worse. The doctor had told Sam it was something that we didn't think it was and we were going for another opinion. We spent pretty much all night in the ER with very little sleep. The next day we slept in and recovered. I also wanted to watch the rash a bit more. I ended up calling the adoption agency that he was at just to inquire about their adoption policy. It turns out that the people that had put him on hold for adoption didn't want him after all! I decided right then and there that we were going to get him.

I filled out the application, answered some questions, and Sunday afternoon we found out that we were approved to adopt! This upcoming weekend the entire family will go meet him to see if he is a good match for us. Everyone at the agency has told us that he is the sweetest guy and that we will fall in love with him the moment that we see him. I have no doubt in that considering we are already in love with him and all we have is pictures!

Hopefully, this guy will be in our home next weekend and part of the Charwood family! Here is a picture that we got from the agency, and the one that made us love him!

ADHD

Well, it's nothing new, but Monkey has ADHD. He's been on medication for quite a while. He will be 11 in just a few months and Sam and I have decided that we want to do something to try and help him as much as we can. That's not to say we haven't been helping him since he got here, but, I've been doing some reading, and I have decided on a new course of action.
We have been making a list of rules to print out for the fridge, and we've also been working on a "check list" of things that he needs to do every day with the days that they need to be done colorized. This way, he can just check to make sure he's done his chores, along with a prompting. We're going to also put up the rules list and the consequences for breaking them. We want to implement things like going to bed early, losing TV, video game, and computer privileges, and loss of dessert. (Not dinner, just dessert! LOL) We also have goals to work on. We want to become members of the local aquarium as well, so we would like to reward him with trips there, and other things that don't cost an arm and a leg!
In other news! My wonderful Mom is going to be down to stay for a week at the end of August! The day camp that the kids go to will be out the week before school starts, so, we don't have anyone to watch the kiddos! how crazy is that?!
Last night we went over to my best friends' house and let all the dogs play together which went fabulously, and played some RockBand and Austin is pretty good at the Guitar, not so good at drums, but not terrible either! Jillian was not very good at the guitar, and didn't even attempt the drums! We all had dinner together, meatloaf, cheesy mashed potatoes and greenbeans. (Monkey ate everything!) I attempted to make home-made banana pudding. The first batch came out beautifully! The second batch, which I thought would set up after I put it in with the first, never sat up, and we had banana soup! It's okay. I learned!

More Flu!

Well, Friday we had to go back to the Dr for Monkey. He had a slight fever, had been coughing, and said that he had a headache. I took a proactive approach and turns out that I was right! his symptoms were so slight, but he had a fever and he said that he had a headache and had been sneezing since Thursday. With that, I had a four day weekend, with two sick kids! Monkey was acting just fine, and Bug wasn't acting out many of her symptoms, but daycare was going on a field trip and I didn't think that they should be traipsing all over the state with the flu!
What it did mean, was that I could get a head start on house work for the weekend! Which means that I might get a chance to enjoy my Sunday with the kiddos! Sounds great, right?
Yesterday, Sam came home from his meeting and said that he had a headache and was going to lay down for a bit. A few hours later I go to ask him if he was okay, and he was burning up with fever. You guessed it, he's got the flu as well!!
the kids got a package from Grammy yesterday. Bug got a new Hanna Montana backpack for school, and Monkey got a new summer workbook, and then she sent the mother load of goodness! She sent a box of CoCo Wheats! If you don't know what they are, then you must have been hiding under a rock for the last 60 some years... CoCo Wheats are like chocolate Cream of Wheats. Man! I forgot how great the taste! We had that this morning for breakfast, and now my 2 "flu sick" kids are bouncing all over! I think today we will go to the park, and possibly even take the dog as well. Not sure yet.

New home!!!

So, tonight is the first night in the new house! We've got almost everything moved. The only thing we have left is the kitchen stuff. We wanted to finish washing the dishes before we moved everything over. We have to finish cleaning the old place as well so we can get our deposit back.

I have about half of the clothes hung in the closet. I need to get some more hangers! It looks rather empty in the closet even with half of the clothes hung up! We had some Taco Bell for dinner because of not having anything in the fridge, and nothing to cook on, with, or eat on!

We've got the TV set up, and obviously the internet. The water tastes a whole lot better than it did at the old place, but still tastes horrible. We already have the spot picked out for the desk, and even got a wireless card for the desktop so we didn't have to drill a new hole in the floor. We've figured out that the vents in the living room, if we put the loveseat against the wall and the TV against the wall, will both be covered up! So, we decided to put the TV against the wall and leave the loveseat pulled out a bit. I guess that the dog can lay back there!

We've still got alot to unpack, but, things are coming along nicely. I found a bunch of clothes that are a a bit too small that we are keeping put up on the shelf as motivation to lose weight. Hopefully that works!

Sam is having alot of fun only using the master bathroom, which is very funny! We have 2 bathrooms now, and he says that the 2nd bathroom is only for the kids, and visitors, so we have to use our bathroom! He is too funny! Today he seen a picture of an American Eskimo puppy, which is the type of dog that Monkey has, and he fell in love. He now wants to buy an Eskie puppy. I told him that we would have to wait for a little while before we could afford to buy one of them. I still want to get my rescued Greyhound. Eventually we will get another dog.

We got to meet one of our neighbors today as well. He has 4 kdis! I can't imagin having that many kids! He does have 2 younger ones that are Monkey and Bugs ages! Sam and I think that it's fantastic that they young ones that can play with them. At least we know that we will have someone to play with! Now, lets hope they get along!

That's all for tonight, I'm pooped and I'm ready for bed!