The new guy...

We adopted Bentley from a Chihuahua rescue. I originally wanted to adopt a female and was considering a long hair, because some people say they actually shed less than the short. After a visit to make sure we were a good home, the gals from the rescue group brought over a little long haired girl for me to meet. She was a pretty girl, the same color as Harley, but not very socialized. They said once she got to know me she would be fine with me, but I wasn't too keen on someone getting bit because they tried to pet my dog. They happened to also have with them a little boy Chi, that was very friendly and came over and got right up into my lap. They said they brought him just in case, because I had told them about B's allergies, and this little guy doesn't shed. I'd pretty much already fallen for him at that point, so the fact that he doesn't shed was a huge bonus. He does have an issue that we're working on though. If he is asleep next to me, he growls if someone comes near us. I'm not liking that, so hopefully I can train him out of it.

When I look at this picture, it makes me think Harley's saying "Aw, mom, do we have to keep him?" hehehe
Bentley makes Harley look big. Harley is 11 pounds, Bentley is 6 pounds.

The vehicle names are coincidence, as Bentley was already named when we got him.

Harley turned 11 yrs. old this month. They are not sure of Bentley's age, but he is estimateted to be 3-4 yrs. old.

The rest of the St. Louis trip...

So, we hit one more auction in the morning on Friday, June 5th. B even came with us to this one. I got another chair and a few other treasures including an old hardback copy of Gone With the Wind. Then we packed up the car to head back home. About an hour after we drove away, I realized I forgot my box of treasures from the auction that morning in Mindy's car. Boo. Friday night we stayed at B's parent's house, then got back on the road. Saturday night we stayed in a hotel about 5 hours from home. When we walked into our hotel room, I was excited, because it seemed we'd gotten the luxury suite (as luxurious as you can get for a cheap hotel...lol) because the room was about as big as some apartments I've lived in. But as the night went on we realized that we were not so lucky after all. For one, we were next to the stair well, and there was group of young people staying a few rooms down that stomped up and down the stairs several times throughout the night. Then we thought someone was knocking on the door, but when B got up to look through the peep hole, he said it was coming from the other side of the room. Yep, our neighbors headboard banging against our wall repeatedly. Lovely. A little later someone did come to our door but only knocked once and left. Then there was the train that pulled it's horn as it passed us. And at the butt crack of dawn, we got more knocking at the door, which this time, was the hotel security guard at the wrong room. Needless to say we got very little sleep, complained to the guy at the front desk, got our room for free, and two cranky folk continued on home. We were gone 36 days.
It was very quiet when we got back home. But only for a day. Monday, Jeremy and Mandy arrived and stayed with us for the week while they were down visiting.


The house stuff...
Before we left for the Missouri trip, I assure you, I had no intention of going up there and looking at houses. But while we were there I got to thinking about it. It all started with that first house that I came across that was in the location that I loved. We got serious about it and even got it inspected. The inspection found a few things that worried us, so we decided against it. And then I came across another house (in a completely different town) and fell in love with it. This one's a 120 year old farm house that has been added on to. The house needs some cosmetic work like painting and a new stove (it has an old antique one). But it looks to be well maintained and the outside was great. I loved the property just as much the house. It has a little log cabin, a garden shed, a really nice barn with horse stalls, a large fenced area for horses, a garden enclosed by a picket fence, a pool enclosed by a picket fence, a creek that ran along the property, and 7 acres of slightly rolling terrain surrounded by trees for privacy. It was absolutely beautiful! The owner said he was flexible on the price since he hasn't listed it with an agent yet and that he was willing to divide the property to make the price more afordable. So, Ben and Jenn suggested buying the other half that has the barn and horse corral on it and building a house, and we loved the idea. The owner also loved this idea because that meant he wouldn't have to pay to open up the road and move utilities around, thus making him even more flexible on the price and also willing to hold the house for us while we came back home and tried to sell our house. Though, Ben and Jenn have since found another place they love and are moving ahead on that one, we are continuing to get our house ready to sell. Yesterday, they delivered the materials for our new roof and they are coming tomorrow to put it on. It was damaged from the storm last year. And since the insurance people took so long, it looks like we'll have a new roof just in time for this year's storms. lol We're figuring on still moving, even if it's not to Missouri, because we're ready for a change. This is the longest I've ever lived in one place, so I'm getting antsy. So, even if it's just 10 minutes away, I'm ready to move on down, move on down the road!

Another Auction

Today I went with Mindy and B's grandma to another auction. I can see that this could become a dangerous new hobby. I got all three of the things I bid on - a comfy chair that I want to try to recover (not sure how I'm getting it back to Texas), 2 retractable dog leashes (which I've been wanting!) along with a few other dog items, and a metal wall hanging. To a grand total of $16. There's one more auction we are going to try to do before I head back home. At this rate, I may have to rent a small trailer to get all my treasures back to my house.

Yesterday B flew to Chicago for a business trip and comes back tomorrow.

The Month of May in Missouri...

We left on April 30th and drove half way to Oklahoma City. This was the 1st road trip with Bently, so I had no idea how he'd do. He and Harley rode together in one crate and did great. In fact they were so quiet, I sometimes wondered if they were ok. Next day we drove the rest of the way to B's parents house. We spent a few days with them and then headed to St. Louis to stay with B's aunt. It's easier for us to stay with her because she's closer to B's grandparents and our friends, plus she has 3 Boxers, so she doesn't mind me bringing my dogs.
They tell me that the pollen here this season is the worse they've seen in a great many years. Lucky us! We've had sinus infections pretty much since the 1st week we got here. I've forgotten what it's like to breath out of my nose. It does seem to be improving a bit though, or we've just started getting used to it. (?)
I've gotten to spend a good bit of time with Mindy, B's aunt. We are alike in a lot of ways, so we get along great. She and I went to the Fleetwood Mac concert on May 6th. They were #1 on my concert "To Do List", so I was really excited about it. I even got my first "over priced concert t-shirt". Yep, 35 years old, and it's my first one (as far as I can recall). Just couldn't help myself this time, I was too excited, and I usually don't get all that jazzed about concerts. That Friday (the 8th) Mindy and B's grandma introduced me to my first auction. It was fun, and we came home with several goodies. Mindy also introduced me to a nearby town that I fell in love with. She's a trouble maker, that one! hehehe In fact I fell for it so much, that we darn near bought a house. Sneaky, sneaky Aunt Mindy!
Though we've stayed pretty busy, we haven't done as much as we'd like since we've been sick most of the time. But we have gotten to visit with Ben and Jenn a bit and B spent a few days helping Jeremy and Mandy move in with their parents. I got to go to the St. Louis zoo, it's one of my favs.! And this past Saturday I had a "girls day" with Mindy and Becky. I've enjoyed getting to do a bit more sight seeing this trip, which we usually don't have time for when we come up. And we have a few more things we hope to get in before we head back.
So far we've been gone 26 days.

We got up bright and early Saturday morning to pick up a chair I found on our local classifieds. When we got there we noticed 2 bar stools they were also selling, and they just happened to be the exact same ones that we have. So we ended up buying them as well since I've been wanting to get 2 more. Woo hoo!
A little later I brought Bitsy back to the rescue group she's with. I was sad after I dropped her off.
Then that afternoon we went to Kate's first b-day party. Then to dinner with Glenn, Becky, Micah, and Lisa.
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On Sunday, I was surprised to find the house very quiet. Bitsy was a pretty active girl, but Harley and Bently are both pretty mellow and I'm amazed at the difference with just the 2 of them. I'm also amazed at how much she shed. I swear I could make a whole other dog from the fur she left behind. But we do miss her. Yes, I said "we".
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I have a really cute picture of her that I am going to post.

Now there are three...

We have two foster dogs here now. Bitsy's still with us and now Bently came Thursday evening. He's a 6 1/2 pound male Chihuahua. He's from another rescue group. They think he's 3-4 years old.
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It turns out B and I are both allergic to Bitsy, the Chiweenie. So, we won't be able to adopt her. It's a shame too, because she looooves B. Whenever he comes into the room , she gets all excited. It's funny. Having three dogs here has been interesting. They definitely keep me busy. And I probably looked like the "crazy dog lady" walking down the street today with the three of them plus the neighbor's dog following behind us.
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I had a heck of a time trying to get a picture of all three of them together.

Easter Weekend

We went to my grandma's in Louisiana for the weekend. We had our usual Easter Crawfish Boil, which I always look forward to. Afterwards was BINGO! Several of us brought prizes, so if you won you got to pick from the prize table. The prizes my grandma contributed were all in boxes or wrapped, so you couldn't tell what they were. I ended up picking a few of those, and was glad I did! Then, of course, what BINGO tournament would be complete without a Silly String fight? Which I, of couse, documented on camera. Sunday, we went all went to church, then came home and took family pictures, examined our Easter baskets (yes, we all still get them), had an egg hunt for the kids, and ate lunch, before everyone started heading back home.
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My mom stayed to visit longer with my grandma, and B and I road back home with Johnny. On our way home a car in front of us lost control, drove through the grass along side of the highway, flipped into the air across the feeder road, and landed upside down in a ditch on the other side. We pulled over right away and B jumped out and ran over to them. By the time he got to them, they were climbing out the back window, and thank God, appeared to be ok. The ditch they landed in had water in it, so the car had water in it. Had they been unconscious, they could have been trapped with their heads under water. The guy and girl in the car were college kids driving back to school.
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My Sunflower cake I made using Peeps.
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Yep, that's my sweetie peelin' crawfish
-Silly String fight.

Bitsy

Thursday, April 2nd:

Bitsy came to join us. She is a one year old Chiweenie (Chihuahua and Dachshund) that I found through a local rescue group. We are fostering her and considering adoption. Her coloring is called dapple, and she has one brown eye and one blue eye, which often occurs with dapples.

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Friday, April 3rd:

We were informed ahead of time that Bitsy has issues with biting. It's not mean biting, it is excited, playful biting, like with a puppy. But still unacceptable, so I've started working with her. I was also told that she won't let you touch her feet, and will bite you if you do. So, today I decided to try to teach her to "shake" (touching her paw to my hand). She totally surprised me, and learned it really fast. She gets a treat for "shaking", associates touching her paws with something good, and now doesn't bite when I touch them. Yay! She also learned to "sit" and sometimes gets "lay down"! She's a smart girl!

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One of the times I was working with her today, Harley was there with us. And I was cracking up, because the whole time I was saying commands to Bitsy, Harley was doing them all and trying to get treats. It was so funny! And the best part was sometimes when I was trying to get her to lay down, Harley would do it and she would look over at him and drop to the ground as if she was saying "Oh, ok, is this what we're supposed to be doing?" Hilarious! I finally had to put Harley in his crate, so I could get her to focus on me.

So long ol' girl...

...we had a good run.

Today I sold my RAV4. It was the first car I ever owned. (And the only one, until 2 years ago.) The ol' girl and I had been together for 12 years. And she's still going strong! I'll admit it, I cried as she drove away.

Wednesday

I've gone back and added a bunch of posts that had never been posted cause I haven't been on here much lately. You'll have to click on "older posts" at the bottom of the page to get throught them all. They go back untill February 3rd.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

The Jokes on Me!

So, B has been having some trouble sleeping lately, and I was afraid that the time change two weekends ago would make it worse. So, I tried to slip it by him. Since we never watch live TV and he works from home, this wasn't too hard of a feat. I just changed the clocks. Sunday came, and we went about our day. Later that afternoon, he left the house to return something at Best Buy. Shortly after he left, he called me and asked, "Is it daylight savings today?" ...Oops...I had completely forgotten about the clock in his car! Oh, well...I tried.

Here's where the joke was on me...

Two days later, I had to drive into Houston to run an errand. It was near Ikea, so I thought I'd stop in and look around. I was in there for quite a while, then I thought I'd better head back home so I don't get caught in the after work traffic. I get in my car to go back home, and look at the clock on the dash, which I'd made sure to changed after B had called me Sunday. ...But.....eeek!....I forgot to change the time on my watch! I was using it while in the store. The actual time was 4:47pm!!!

It was a long drive home.

BTW, Jenn, I got your bedspread. :)

A hiking we will go...

This afternoon B and I decided to go on a little hike around the preserve behind our house. It was quite nice. I decided to make it a family event and brought Harley with us. But the ol' guy coundn't hang. Half way through he was looking really tired, so I ended up carrying him for most of the rest of the way. And I know he had to be really tired, because at one point he even let me carry him on his back, and he usually hates that. Spoiled rotten dog!

And Jenn, I don't know how you can garry Gabe for so long, cause my arm was hurting carrying an 11 pound Chihuahua for a half an hour. Guess I need to build up my muscles. lol

Later that evening B and I went on a dinner date to a new Thai place near us. The building and sign have been there for a while and we'd been patiently awaiting it's opening. It was yummy.

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!

Mushy gushy love day

Well, it's been a rough week for our guests. In the past few days, everyone from our trip has gotten a stomach bug, except B and I. That's 9 out of the 11 people! Even my cousin, who was only with us on the last day, got sick. I'm not sure how B and I managed to avoid it. To add to the fun, our washing machine broke. And believe me, with that many sick people in the house, we were in desperate need to do laundry. B and Ben ended up taking several loads to a laundry mat. Thankfully, we were able to get someone to come out yesterday to fix it.


Today everyone seems to be on the mend. While the guys were out shopping for our Valentines meal, the gals dipped strawberries, bananas, marshmellows, blueberries, and whatever else we could find in chocolate. The guys made dinner and we created our own little restaurant atmosphere in the dinning room while Chelsea watched the boys.

Ben and Jenn come to visit!

This past Friday we rented a house in Wimberly, Texas with Ben, Jenn, and their boys, Jenn's sister Chelsea, and Micah, Lisa,and Isaiah. We had a lot of fun exploring the nearby areas. We went to Hamilton's Pool (near Austin), Natural Bridge Caverns, the outlet mall in San Marcus (I finally got to check out the Pottery Barn outlet!), the River Walk in San Antonio, and my cousin was our personal tour guide for our day in Austin. We also celebrated B's birthday yesterday.

We are now back at our house and are glad to have Ben and Jenn and their family staying with us for another week!

Happy B-Day To Me

Yesterday was my birthday. B and I went to The Melting Pot with James and Shannon for dinner. He called ahead and had balloons tied to a bar of chocolate waiting on the table when we arrived and they took a picture of the 4 of us and gave it to us in a frame. We splurged and did the full 4 course feast - Cheese, Salad, Meat/Veggies, and Chocolate. It was quite a treat!

New dinning room table

I found a steal of a deal on our local online classifieds for a black Pottery Barn dinning room table. It was such a great price because it was just the table, no chairs. But that's ok because I have had six dinning room chairs in my garage for quite a while now, just waiting on a table, and I plan to paint them to match. I got the chairs for free on Freecycle. I also plan to recover the seats.

I haven't taken a picture yet, but the table is similar to this one, but in black:
http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p5371/index.cfm?pkey=ctables

And once I paint the chairs, they will be similar to these in black:
http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p7803/index.cfm?pkey=cchairs

Nope! Just can't do it!

I can not bring myself to read the end of "Marley and Me". I started this book last year and then stopped. Then, in anticipation of it coming out in the theaters, I started reading it again. And it still sits, almost finished, but nope. I have cried enough. I'm talking tears running down my face, falling onto my shirt kind of crying. And I know good and well the ending's gonna bring on more tears. B even wanted to take me on a date to see the movie, but I told him it's probably best that we wait for the DVD, so that I can cry in the privacy of our own home. What can I say, when it comes to dogs, I'm a sap! However, the story is not just about a dog. I have read on the internet that some parents were unhappy because they brought their child to see the movie, thinking it was a comedy about a dog.

FWI, it's not. The trailors for this movie are misleading.

Like, I said I have not seen the movie, my info comes strictly from hearing and reading peoples responses to it, but I have gotten the impression that it follows closely to the book. It's a story about a man and his dog, but it's also a story about a man and his wife, and their relationship, and their children. I don't know about the movie, and maybe these parents are over reacting, but as far as the book goes, I wouldn't place it in the children's section.

BTW, I really liked the book. And even though it was a tear jerker, there are parts that are down right funny!

I laughed, I cried, and maybe one day....I'll read the end.

Oops! Forgot to water the dog!

My dog can stand a lot of things, however thirst is not one of them. If his bowl is out of water and he is thirsty, he will find a way to let me know. Usually this is done by placing his front paw into his lead crystal (yes, lead crystal) bowl and dragging the bowl across the ceramic tile floor. This makes a scraping sound that I can hear from any room in the house. Another option he sometimes chooses is to find the water on his own, thus making any glass within his reach fair game. He chose that route this evening and went for my glass sitting on the coffee table next to the couch. However this did not go as he had planned. I was in the other room when I heard the sound of glass breaking and immediately knew what had happened and why. Mother's intuition? Or predictable pup?

Pondering.....

This year I hope to declutter my home.

Sad :(

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090103/ap_en_ot/bahamas_travolta_s_son_12

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

More Winter Fun

December 19th:
Jeremy, Mandy, and B's mom came down from Missouri and stayed with us. The first order of business was going out for Mexican food for dinner.

December 20th:
We had a party at our house, so J.B and Mandy could visit with everyone. It doesn't seem like they've been gone that long, but it's been 7 months!

December 21st:
We had B's grandma over for more visiting.

December 22nd:
B's mom and I met up with him at Kobe during his lunch break. Then she and I hit a couple of stores so I could work on finishing up my Christmas shopping. I also drove her through a really cute neighborhood that I recently discovered. She had to agree, it really is cute. I discovered this neighborhood while B was out of town when I went to pick up one of my bargain finds from our town's online classifieds. This lady was selling a white shower curtain from Restoration Hardware for $5.00! It originally cost over $70! I wanted a white curtain for one of our guest bathrooms and I love this one. Yay!

For dinner we met up with Rob and Brandon for Thai food. Then we went to Rob's house because Marlena and her mom had spent the day baking a bunch of different kinds of cookies and we felt we really needed to sample a few for them. Because that's the kind of giving friends that we are. :)

December 23rd:
After we all went out to lunch, JB, Mandy, and Connie headed back to Missouri.

December 24th:
We went to picked up a few last minute Christmas presents. Then we decided against the evenings Chistmas Eve festivities and instead spent a relaxing evening at home. I finished wrapping presents, then we watched A Christmas Story on TV.

Just before heading to bed, I decided to take a few pictures of our tree with the presents around it. With my camera, bad lighting and shakey hands don't mix, so I had my tiny camera set up on the tripod, which looks pretty funny. B walked by and started laughing and went upstairs. Then he came back down the stairs and said "If you're gonna do that, you might as well do it right." and handed me a wrapped present. My eyes grew big and, I have to admit, I got a little light headed at the though of what I thought might be in there. Then I opened it and it WAS in there! My new camera!

It was time to go to bed, but I didn't want to put it down, so I considered laying it between us as we slept....but I resisted the urge and put it on my dresser....where I could still see it. :)

December 25th:
My first Christmas morning to wake up in my own home! And it was lovely! I do hope to do it again someday. Fingers crossed for 2010!

We spent the day at my mom's with my family.

December 27th:
Party at Rob and Marlena's.

December 28th:
Nicole's baby shower.

December 31st:
New Year's Eve party at our house. Lots of food (especially cheese!) and a good time visiting and spending time with friends.