Best Decision Ever!!

Last week Ross got a message from Havoc's trainer, who also works with an animal rescue, asking if Ross would be willing to foster a 1 year old female great dane named Petunia. Ross, of course, was more than willing and we talked about it and figured it would be a good try to see if we would like getting a great dane, which is Ross' dream dog.

We took Havoc to meet her and make sure she didn't try to eat him and she really was the sweetest thing. She would lean against your legs so you could pet and rub her, I almost fell over a couple times not prepared for her 109 pounds against me. Her and Havoc seemed pretty indifferent to each other and we were told she was potty trained so we decided to give it a try. For the most part she was really good, mellow and quiet. Once she was used to and comfortable in our yard we did run into some problems when she tried to play with Havoc. With them both being puppies they want to play, but with her being 102 pounds heavier than Havoc the math doesn't add up. We had to grab her a couple times as she would playfully swat and try to nibble on Havoc. We took her in the house while we were in there to watch her and she did really good, except that her head was at counter level and she had to sniff everything (needless to say I had to sanitize all of my counter tops and rewash some dishes). Luckily Havoc isn't territorial, as long as you stay out of his bed, so she slept the first night in the kitchen and was really quiet and we thought things were going good, until the alarm went off. Ross got up to go to the bathroom and with the door opened for less than 30 seconds the smell that hit from the kitchen made me gag. I didn't want to see what it looked like. Needless to say she flooded our kitchen and left piles (potty trained my butt). It took over a full roll of paper towels to clean up just the pee and the smell of the poop left my stomach unsettled until well after lunch. Needless to say Ross was loosing his enthusiasm for the great dane. Poor Havoc walked along the wall in the kitchen watching us clean up and gave us a look like "this is what you get." We figured the next night, since its warm, Petunia (name did not fit her at all) could sleep outside and we set up a shelter and a place for her to sleep. She however had different ideas and decided to bark until 1 am when Ross was too frustrated and put her in the garage. Luckily she was adopted the next afternoon and we were very excited for her. Ross decided it wasn't the dog for him, not with all we went through, not to mention the smell in the backyard from the many cow pie sized poops she left us. I think we are more suited to small or medium breed dogs and better to realize that now before going through all the expense of getting a great dane puppy.

I've lost my mind

I can't believe I ever called yard work not so bad, I think I may have gone as far as say that it was enjoyable. I really don't know what I was thinking. No, I do know what I was thinking, I was thinking that the yard "rebuild" would be relatively easy. Since then I have realized nothing is ever as easy as it looks and turns out to be much more time consuming than ever imagined.

To date we have removed 13 trees (and have possibly 2 more to remove, but only if they are plum trees), picked up hundreds of pounds of decorative rocks,tore down and removed a play house/mice nest/garbage dump, removed over 4 garbage cans of weeds, spent over 10 hours behind the tiller and we are still not finished. Yesterday I had a section of the back yard that I wanted to finish cleaning out and put grass seed down and then the back yard would almost be finished this year. Unfortunately we came across more piles of decorative rocks and then between the piles the rocks were spread out and we are out of room to put them along the driveway and our garbage can was getting too heavy with the rocks, this set us back and we are hoping to be able to finish today. Then my back yard will be almost finished. We did plant one shade tree in the front and I want to plant a peach tree somewhere in my yard and I did find out one of my trees in the back is a cherry tree, so in a little while if anyone wants cherries they are welcome to them because I can't eat them all.

On the bright note my garden is doing really well. Even with the snow my tomato plants are flourishing and have blossoms and my peas and pumpkin plants are getting quite big. I think I lost all of my peppers and artichoke plants though. However, I am fighting birds for my strawberries. I got pretty excited cause the first couple were almost ripe and when I went to pick them they were gone. Greedy birds.

The weekend that sucked

I have such a funny husband. We had talked about and planned on going camping with my parents for Memorial Day weekend for a couple months but every time it was brought up Ross would tell me how bad its going to suck and that he won't have any fun and it would be just miserable, but he was still willing to go. He took a book and his ipod so that he would have something to do, cause it was going to be such a boring weekend. The weather was nice but due to a wind it was quite cold and the fishing was not good at all due to the lake never being filled this season, however, a few times I found Ross smiling and he even laughed a little. He did put down his book and took off his head phones and actually joined in some of the games we were playing. I think he even made some jokes too. He wanted to leave right after breakfast Sunday morning but come Sunday morning and he was willing to leave later than planned so I could fish a little and he could finish his game of horseshoes. He and my mother also got into a heated canasta game and wanted a rematch when my mother won. The funniest thing happened between Friday and Sunday, Ross enjoyed himself and actually said he would do it again.

On a side note, this was Havocs first time camping and we were interested to see how he would do. We were a little concerned cause he is a barker and I didn't want to deal with a dog barking all weekend and we were afraid he would be up all night barking at every sound. But he didn't bark that much and he slept through the night without a peep. The only downfall was there was so many new things to smell and taste and he didn't want to sit still, he wanted to explore everything and I pulled so many things out of his mouth that he should probably not eat. When we got home we put him in the yard and he ran around, seemingly happy to be off the leash, and just barked at nothing in particular, just ran and barked.

Spin

I have had people ask me what spin class is and then I was watching The Office and Dwight put the whole class into perspective. Ok, so not really, I just love the spot and wanted to share. Usually when I jump the cliffs I make it.

Garden

I think my ambition has burned me out. For those of you that have not seen my yard, there is A LOT to do and at first it didn't seem so bad. But, as with the inside of the house, the more work is done the more I realize its quite the daunting task. My first big project was to remove the small "decorative" rocks from my flower beds so I can plant grass. It def took a lot longer than I had planned, but what doesn't? It took me many days and one afternoon my friend brought her 4 kids over to help with the rocks. Finally I was able to get the two front beds empty of rocks and got my grass planted, which I hope the grass grows and the snow didn't kill the seeds. When the grass finally comes in it will mean less weeding for me and since I don't care for weeding it will be nice. I still have the planters boxes in the front and the side to de-rock but since I don't know what I am planting there yet I am not pushing to get it done fast.

My other big project is my garden. I grew up having a garden every year and I love being able to go out back and get fresh veggies and I plan to bottle some of the fruits of my labor, which will be nice this winter and help in the grocery budget. But, again, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I tend to jump in with both feet instead of starting small. I have many tomato plants, I am trying peppers and my husband wanted some jalapeno plants, I already planted my peas and strawberries and have started some cucumber, watermelon, pumpkin, cantaloupe, squash and artichoke plants in the house so when its finally warm I can plant them outside and hopefully have a jump start. But, then again there is all the weeding involved and judging by the rocks and trash I am pulling out my new garden area, I don't think they ever had anything planted in the space. I have even found buried bricks (some days I am afraid of finding a dead body). I am sure I will be pulling rocks out of the garden area for many years. But I am pretty excited for the end result, if it ever gets here. I usually get home from work and spend at least a couple hours out there working on something, which is nice after the winter of being indoors, but I am ready for some progress, I want my yard to look as nice as my neighbors which have very green, nice lush grass instead of how my front lawn is mostly dandelions. I do want to try to grow some asparagus in one of my front planters boxes but I'm not sure how it will do in the area. I haven't decided if I want to put flowers in my boxes because a lot of them you have to replant every year and that can be expensive and most ground covers end up in the grass and become a nuisance. But if I use flowering veggies and stuff then I can eat them too. Come fall I will probably be biting off more than I can chew with bottling too. I hope I can get some good fruit off my trees that I can use this winter. I guess I just hope that I have some good fruit trees, the apple is the only one I am sure of what it is, the other 7 are a mystery.

Yesterday

Man, yesterday was such a very super productive day and I am not sure I want to repeat a day like yesterday ever again. However, judging by how much there is still left to do in the yard before Summer hits I can pretty much bet on more days like yesterday. I am starting to have 2nd thoughts of being a home owner.

After work yesterday I went home to get a couple of parts of our yard ready to plant grass seed. Thanks to my wonderful hubby we now have a tiller and so it was much easier than my previous anticipation. After spending over an hour hand tilling a part of the garden to get my tomatoes and peppers in I told Ross we HAVE to get a tiller, so, we pooled out play money together to get one and I think its been the best purchase we have made in, well, in all of our marriage. In one section that I did yesterday it was covered in weeds, I hadn't taken the time to pull them all out, but with the tiller it was no problem. I just went over the weeds and tilled deep enough and then I just had to go pick the roots and weeds out of the soft dirt. I did run out of time to actually put the grass seed down, but its tilled and raked and ready to go for today.

While I was doing the tilling Ross was finishing up the dishwasher. Now, I know I have said this before, and gotten so excited for my dishwasher in the past just to come back and say its not really fixed yet, but this time, I am pretty sure its fixed. My genius of a husband, with a little help of the Internet, was able to take the dishwasher apart, find the problem, fix the problem and put the little machine back together. The culprit in all the dishwasher drama was the hose from the dishwasher to the sink. When he got the hose off you could see at least 10 inches of greasy, slimy, putrid gunk that was clogging the hose and preventing it from draining. He put on a new hose and presto blamo, the dishwasher should work. The funny guy, he was too afraid to test it himself a was saving the honor for me but I didn't get a chance to yesterday, but I have great faith that it will work today.

While Ross was finishing up the dishwasher and after I got the ground ready for the seed I had to take off. I was going to my first ever spin class, which I was pretty excited for. Ross was going to join me but our home teacher was going to come over and fix our door for us and he hadn't gotten there yet and Ross was still working with the dishwasher, which I am pretty happy to say that it works normally now, people are no longer going to get trapped in our living room. But spin class, it was so intense and such a good workout. Bre went with me and we last for 40 of the 60 min, which I was pretty proud of. My legs got such a good work out and I almost fell down the stairs when we were leaving, but I can't wait to go back. After spin class we went to water aerobics for an hour. After it all I was pretty tired and just wanted to go home and crash.

The sad part is I am going to do it all over again Wednesday, except for the dishwasher and the door. We have so much in our yard that needs to be done, but once its done it will make life so much easier and simpler in the summer, much less weeding. I did realize, this last week, as I look over my front "lawn" (I can't really call it a lawn because 75% of it is dandelions and not grass) that those noxious weeds they talk about in the bible, after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, are dandelions. Those are such a pain to get rid of. One Saturday I looked out and my front yard was yellow so I spent over an hour picking the top off of the flowers before they could go to seed and make it worse. My hands were discolored from the flowers and sticky milky stuff in the stems and my back was sore and I thought it would help, until the next morning when I looked out again and saw my lawn was yellow yet again. I think I am ready for winter again, less work to do in the winter.

Sister Code

My sister and I were talking today at work about the things that are required of each other in our sister-ship. We have had these standing rules that were never really spoken but were required. We figured we better put them down in writing so we can refer back to them, kind of like a contract of sorts. I don't know any other sisters that have a relationship like we do, but feel free to borrow some of our rules/requirements :)

1) Sisters must tell the other sister EVERYTHING first (gossip, dating, engagements, pregnancies, drug overdose, etc)

2) Certain names/words can be used as terms of endearment, such as whore, slut, tramp, and any other words you and your sister decide upon in advance of using the such name.

3) It is OK to grab each others butts, regardless of the situation. Just be prepared for stares, glances and obscene gestures when done in public.

4) Any kind act will win you a spot as the FSE (favorite sister ever) or the BSE (best sister ever). Any negative act may result in you becoming the LFSE (figure it out on your own) or the word slut or whore may be used in this situation as well.

5) When getting a hair cut or a pedicure you are required to invite your sister along, you don't have to pay for her, but she must be invited.

6) When attempting an project of any kind, whether it be moving or making a cake, you must first see if the sister is interested in helping or assisting. Sister code obligates assistance in these matters.

7) If one sister has a makeup line, underwear sticking out of pants or something in your teeth, sisters are obligated to notify said sister.

8) When going to lunch, if sisters work at or near the same location, they must invite sister to go with them, especially if an FHC is involved.

9) When one sister runs out of gas in the middle of night the other sister, after taking a moment to laugh and mock, must go and rescue sister.

10) When doing activities in a group, sisters should never leave the other behind. ie Disneyland, Skiing, hiking, etc.

I am sure there are others and we will add to them as time goes and things change but these are what works for us.