Problems?

Anyone else out there having major problems getting posts posted? I can't seem to upload a picture to save my life...I've been trying for hours! What's the deal?

Grrrr....I'll try again tomorrow.

Checking in...

I am alive, and well, I guess. There has been a lot going on lately, not much of it good. Long story...anyway, I just thought I'd check in and say howdy.

I've been thinking about a lot of things lately, and along those lines, this old story came to mind.

Did you hear the story of the little boy with a bad temper? Handing his son a bag of nails, the boy's father explains each time his son loses his temper and shouts angry hurtful words he must hammer a nail into the back of the wooden fence in their yard. On that first day 37 nails went into the fence. Over the next few weeks the boy began discovering it was easier to hold his temper and his tongue than trek all the way out to the back fence and pound those nails into the fence.

After some time the boy proudly approached his father and announced he had not lost temper at all for several days. His wise father suggested his son pull out one nail for each temper-free day. Finally, boasting that all the nails were gone, the boy takes his dad's hand and leads him to the fence without nails. "You have done well, my son. Now look at the holes in the fence. It will never be the same. When you say things in anger your words leave scars, just like these holes."

I feel like there are a lot of new holes in my fence...

Progress!

We are making progress on the clean up mess. Yay!

All of the fans are finally gone.

The insurance adjuster came and spent nearly 2 hours in the house today, and determined that there was about $4000 worth of damage done. Delightful.

At least the pups don't have to be sequestered from most of the house anymore!

It could have been worse...it could have been worse....

Bear got her chipped front tooth fixed today. It looks as perfect as it ever did, thank goodness!

Hubby got home from a short business trip today, and hopefully by tomorrow things will start getting put back in place. With the kids and the dogs, I need my washer and dryer hooked up and ready.

Oh, and lets not forget that we still don't have any hot water! Tomorrow will be day 5 with no water heater. Hopefully that will get fixed soon too! Cold showers suck!

Perspective

I try to keep things in perspective. Sometimes it's harder than it sounds. Sunday was awful...

As you saw from yesterday's post, my house is a mess. Our water heater decided to spring a HUGE leak out the top at about 6:45am. Just what we needed on the one day in I don't know how long that we could actually sleep in. Yep, thanks for that.

In my panic and eternal optimism, I threw an entire load of freshly laundered towels onto the hallway floor, where I saw the biggest puddle. Hubby yelled mentioned calmly that the towels wouldn't help...it was way too much water for that. I was hoping, in my heart of hearts, that he would be wrong. Surely it couldn't be that bad, could it?

Of course it could.

The carpet in the living room had to be pulled up, the pad was trashed, carpet in AJ's room had to come up, closet doors had to be removed, baseboards have been ripped off of walls, and that was just in the first hour! What a mess...

All of that, my friends, was just the start of what would prove to be a very trying day. Of course all of the neighbors, once they were up and had gone outside to get the morning newspapers, had to come over and check out the excitement at our house. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE to entertain my friends, but this was NOT what I had in mind for this particular morning. I guess it was the two "rapid response" trucks pulled haphazardly in my driveway that gave away the fact that something exciting was going on. Ah, that's me, I love excitement.... notice the sleepy eyes...

Several hours, and several cups of coffee later, (and I'm not usually a coffee drinker) I was trying to put the work I had ahead of me (and a couple of other things) out of my mind for a short while. I stepped next door to see my neighbors new backyard turf, and oohh, and awe over her lovely landscaping. As I trotted home through the front yard, barefooted of course (who'd had time to think of putting shoes on?) I stepped on a bee. The little sucker's stinger got me just on the inside part of my heal, where the tuff skin stops and the tender skin starts. Just what I needed. The last time I was stung, on the tip of my thumb, it swole (swelled?) to twice it's normal size. Ah, Mother Nature giving me a reminder, to watch where I was walking I suppose. I was able to get the stinger out quickly,and kept the swelling to a minimum.

Shortly after the bee sting, I had to start getting ready for a job. Remember, I'm in the home party business, so it's common for me to have to work odd hours on the weekends. I got ready to jump into the shower to get myself cleaned up, and realized we had no hot water. Delightful! Of course I'd cut myself short on time, and didn't want to bother a neighbor for a shower, so I just stuck my head under the faucet, shampooed quickly and towel dried my (very) cold head. I grabbed the hair dryer, plugged it in, and turned it on. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. With 24 industrial size fans and 4 huge de-humidifiers running in the house, there was no power left for anything else. There I stood, ever so briefly, in front of the bathroom mirror, with hair that resembled Bozo the Clown and burst into tears. Realizing that I still had to be 30 miles away, and I had 45 minutes to get there, I didn't let my pity-party last very long. After a nice little round of cursing up a storm, and towel-dried my head as best as I could, thru a little styling gel in my hair, grabbed my equipment, and hit the road.

I must say, I was happy to be out of the house and especially out of the noise for those few hours. With all of the fans running, it sounded as if our house was square in the middle of an airline hangar.

After a pleasant few hours away, where I nearly forgot the frustration of the day, I came home, and was treated to a lovely dinner prepared by our neighbors. I think was the very best part of the day. We had fresh fried catfish, home made french fries, cole slaw, corn bread and strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was fantastic, and much needed. I thought the day was finally turning around and getting better. After all, things are supposed to happen in "3's" right? Within the last week we'd dealt with a broken windshield on our Smart car, a broken dryer, and a broken water heater. That was 3, and that was enough, right?

Wrong. I'm guessing now that I think about it, the bee sting must have been the start of the next 3 things to happen, even though they were less severe, they were no less aggravating.

First came the bee sting. Then the blow dryer. What's the third thing? How about to top off the night, Kona, being a bit freaked out by everything that had been happening in the house earlier in the day, jumped up to greet Bear when she'd come over to see the damage. They somehow managed to bump teeth. Dogs teeth are apparently stronger than our teeth. Kona chipped Bear's front tooth at 9:30pm Sunday night. Bear, the one member of our family with absolutely PERFECT teeth, straight, white and gorgeous...never even a cavity, now had a broken front tooth.

I did manage to keep something in mind though, and kept reminding myself about it over and over. "It can always get worse." It was my mantra for the day. The flood could have been worse. The bee sting could have been worse, the tooth could have been worse - the entire day could have been worse.

I reminded myself of the parents we'd spent our morning with on Saturday, at the Celebration of Champions. Each of those parents were there because their child had cancer. Some of the children were survivors, some were currently battling, and some had lost their battle. My worst day could not compare to what those parents had been through, day after day. If that wasn't the perfect way to get my day into the proper perspective, I don't know what was. My Sunday wasn't that bad afterall...

Good Days and Bad

Ah, the weekend. Saturday and Sunday....we always look forward to them, don't we?

This past weekend was so strange for me. Saturday was one of the best days I've had in a long time. It was full of fun, and friends and bringing joy to others.

This is what my Saturday looked like.

And, in stark contrast, this is what my Sunday looked like...

I'll take my Saturday over my Sunday anytime! Details soon, I'm just too pooped right now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Welcome to My World!

So...whatcha been up to?

Me? Ah, not much...it's been a slow week. Ha! Who am I kidding?

Tuesday morning started off before the crack of dawn as I had to drop Hubby off at the airport. He was heading off to Minnesota for a work trip. Fun, fun. I came home, and got going on emails, and started organizing a get together I'm planning for tomorrow night. I decided to treat myself to a movie for a change as I figured it was my only day to do that for the foreseeable future. I saw Bridesmaids. It was cute. It was funny. It was raunchy. It wasn't the best movie I'd ever seen, but it was fun, and that's what I wanted. Pickle and I got our nails done in the afternoon and I took AJ to dinner - just the two of us, since both girls were busy. It was a pretty pleasant day.

Wednesday was spent waiting for the Sears guy to come and repair the dryer. Pickle thought it would be a great idea to cram two months worth of laundry into one HUGE load a bit too much into one load, and it broke the belt. Nice. Just what I needed. The guy showed up at 10am and was surprisingly very pleasant, although a bit slow with the fix. He was also petrified of dogs. When he walked up to the door and the dogs barked, I thought he was going to faint. I explained that I'd "put them away" - meaning I'd block them off in "puppy jail" behind the kitchen chairs, and that it was safe for him to come in. He explained that he'd been bit, TWICE before on service calls, and was very scared of dogs. I can't say I blame him.

After finally getting everything fixed, he was on his way, and I was on the laundry warpath. Lets just say I had several loads to catch up on, and unlike some people, I don't over fill the loads. By the end of the day, I was all caught up and feeling a little relief from that. It's always a good feeling to have empty hampers and full drawers of socks and undies, among other things!

Thursday was crazy! I had committed my Love on a Leash chapter to take part in a health fair. We had 2 time slots to fill and 7 teams that signed up. No problem, right? Well, one small problem. We were participating with another therapy organization, and I wasn't exactly sure how that was going to go. Kona and I were going to be there for the second shift, but I thought it'd be a good idea to get there early, be sure our teams knew where to go, etc. I got there shortly before it started, and all was well EXCEPT I hadn't really thought about bringing any literature for our group. It wouldn't have been a big deal, I mean the people there were really interested in seeing the dogs, after all, but the other organization have a lovely display of poster boards, pictures, handouts, etc. Geeze...talk about feeling inept! I decided I simply had to do something about my over site, so I took off, went to the nearest store, bought poster board, construction paper, and glue, and boogied home.

In about an hour and a half, I printed out handouts, made a nice poster board for display, and managed to get back to the health fair. Whew! Talk about running around like a chicken with my head cut off! I won't let that happen again!

After the health fair ended, I came home, dropped off Kona, picked up my camera and headed to watch AJ's last "official" high school varsity Baseball game.

Because of my crazy schedule, I hadn't been to one of his games in a long time, and I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. He batted 3 for 5, had 4 RBI's and his team one, 23 to 5. It was a nice way to finish up the season. From there we went out for a Boll Weevil burger, and came home to watch an episode of "Dr. Who." The kids (and Hubby) have been bugging me to start watching that show with them, so every evening this week we've been watching one if not more episodes.

Today was a bit of a marathon day. I got rolling nice and early, because today was the day I needed to go and get all of the supplies for our (the Golden Retriever Meetup Group) big "Movie Night" event tomorrow night. We have 157 people RSVP'd for our Dog Friendly movie event! We will be watching a movie, having hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, candy, soda, hot cocoa, etc., and I had to pick up all of the stuff. I had a list a mile long, and knocked it all out this morning. I am really looking forward to this event. We did this about a year and a half ago and it was a HUGE hit with the group. Granted, it's a lot of work, but it's a ton of fun, and totally worth it. We are holding the event at a place called Party Pals, which is owned by one of our group members. Party Pals is a facility where they hold corporate events, grad nights, etc. It's also completely fenced in, and our dogs can be offleash. We will have tired, happy pups at this time tomorrow night.

After all of the shopping was done, Kona and I visited the VA hospital, and then headed to watch a bit of the Varsity vs JV baseball game that AJ was playing in. We didn't see much before we had to leave the field, and head to the airport to pick up Hubby. His plane landed at 5pm, we came home, dropped off Kona, changed clothes, and went to meet up with a group of friends that we had planned to go to dinner with.

After dinner, we came home, I jumped on the computer, and Hubby crashed on the couch. I can hear him snoring contently from here....

I'm looking forward to the movie get together tomorrow but before that Kona and I will have a very busy day. We will be participating in the "Celebration of Champions". According to their web site "This event celebrates the heroic efforts of children with cancer, and of their families and health care professionals." We've never participated in this event before, but I hear it is awesome. We need to be downtown by about 8am, and will stay for a couple of hours.

After the Celebration of Champions we have a new facility that we are starting for my Love on a Leash chapter. We'll be meeting with another team at 1pm to visit with 12 senior citizens at an inpatient facility. I expect that visit to last about an hour, and then we'll be heading home, taking a short break to recharge, and then loading up the car and heading to the movie event.

I'm tired just thinking about all of that. Seriously.

San Diego History

16 years ago in San Diego....this took place about 5 miles from where we live. Crazy stuff!

I remember it well.

Ricochet- the Wonder Dog!

Our friend Ricochet the SURFice dog is at it again-making smiles (and miracles) happen! Check out her newest adventure!

The Dog Days of Spring

We've had a very busy weekend, with two major dog events going on. Yesterday was the annual "Pet Day on the Bay" where dog owners and their furry pals enjoy a one hour cruise around San Diego Bay for a small monetary donation and a gently used towel or blanket. The event benefits a large animal center here in S.D. and is always quite popular. In the past we've taken all four dogs, but it does get a little hard to handle them all, especially since I like to float around talking to to members, take pictures, etc. I usually wind up handing the dogs over to Hubby and the kids, so this time I decided it would be an outing for just Harley and I. We had a great time, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

This morning we had a "Luratics" meetup. If you aren't familiar with Lure Coursing for your dog, check it out here. Although we figured out that none of our dogs are big "chasers," it was very popular for the majority of the dogs that attended. I took tons of video and even more pictures - here are just a few of my favorites. I'll load video soon.

Video Test

I recently got a Flip Video from my ultra cool boss, and I'm trying to figure out how to load videos onto my blog from it. I'm hoping they are compatible.

By George, I think I've got it! Yippee!!

Another practice post....

Just trying to figure out what I can and can't do with the Blogsy app. Hmmmm...

Ok, I think I've figure put how to post a picture....and make things bold. Ah, the fun of a new program...I'm making progress!

Just testing

I'm trying out a new mobile blogging application, and just testing it to see if I can get it to post. Please bear with me...I'm kind of lost with this right now!

An Evening in Old Town

I'm not sure why this post dissappeared, but it seems as though it's par for the course lately with my computer and now blogger issues. Grrr!

Let's try this again!

We spent a lovely evening in Old Town Wednesday evening with about 40 of our Golden Friends.
The dogs were antsy to get going on our walk.

We had a guided walking tour and learned lots of fun facts about Old Town.

No a bad sized group for a Wednesday evening meetup!

The pups were very well behaved, even in the close quarters of the restaraunt.

Good Day My Lord!

So much for posting these on Sunday. No excuses other than the normal - I've been swamped! But, at long last, here are some pictures from our adventure at the Renaissance Fair.


We LOVED it!
The Renaissane Fair is for people of all ages....
And it's VERY popular! There were thousands of people there Saturday!
People come up with very inventive costumes!

Bear bought herself a complete new costume.

There are always fun things to buy.

and see.

Men in bloomers? You bet!

Ah, the Queen!

hmmm...interesting...at least they don't poop like real horses!

Bear and I each found a new boyfriend for the day. Ha!

This old timer has been at the fair every time we've been there. He's one of the long time merchants.

It's fun to listen to the various musical groups too.

Blogger is being a bugger, and won't let me post any more pictures - so I'll have to make a second entry. Grrrr.