Pop! Pop!

I don't have a terrible lot to report today...although I wanted to keep with my promise of posting every day. I came in to work today at 7am to make calls to South Africa and by 2:00 am hitting my 4pm slump. Ugh. Maybe it's time for a pop tart. Anyone that knows my slight obsession with high fiber foods will be able to understand how excited I was to find this!: 

They taste just like regular pop tarts but have less fat and more fiber! My coworkers brought in cheesecake for a birthday and I passed it up in favor of one of these suckers...which doesn't say a TON since I don't really care for cheesecake, but damn I do love brown sugar pop tarts.

Botany Fail

This is one of those kits where they provide you with the bulbs and soil and detailed two step instructions. It even says on the box "there is virtually no way to fuck this up". Nature really does all the work....and you should have a beautiful plant that looks like this:

...and yet I have proceeded to create this Frankenstein of a plant. I have no idea what I did.It started out in my kitchen, but I've moved it outside to see if that would help. It hasn't. It's not wilty or droopy. It's just growing like that...with little bits of dying sprinkled on top for an added kick to my maternal instinct. I should not be trusted to care for living things...namely children...I heard once that you don't even get two step instructions with them.

Heaven is a wagging tail.

I was reading through Post Secret and came across this "secret". I don't really believe in a heaven or a hell, but this idea makes me want to.

To Pinch or Not to Pinch.

Chris and I have made a somewhat controversial decision in terms of our doggy parenting. At approximately 90lbs of pure muscle and instinct Indy can be somewhat...ahem...of a challenge at times. We've worked so incredibly hard to train him and tame the supposedly domesticated beast within him and I think we've done a damn fine job of it. He knows a variety of party tricks ranging from "boxing" to "bowing" to a nice solid "high five". He waits for the OK to eat his food and if I tell him to leave it while he's eating, he'll stop and look at me for permission to continue. On walks he trots mostly right by my side trying hard to resist the urge to sniff and pee on every passing leaf, blade of grass or lamp post. The one thing we haven't seemed to conquer is his crazy behavior when encountering other dogs on walks. He used to be just fine.

When he was a puppy he was overly excited when he would see a dog, but with very little real FREAKING OUT involved. Last May(ish) when we had moved to the apartment Chris and I were taking him out for a walk when we were standing near a man with poor hygiene and his large german shepherd. The german shepherd took one look at me and Indy and started going NUTSO. No exaggeration this dog was incredibly aggressive and it was directed towards either me or Indy. Indy snapped. At the time we had just started using a choke collar on him and as he strained and snarled against the collar while Chris pulled back his eyes bulged and I saw a side of my sweet little shmoopy head that I had never really seen. The owner of the other dog mumbled something about that being typical for his dog and walked across the street. This was not typical for Indy. He was clearly provoked and being protective. I'm not 100% sure this is what triggered his recent behavior but after that incident I noticed a change. When we walk by a house and a dog starts barking and going crazy behind a fence Indy lunges and barks back.


If we pass a house with a passive quiet dog he's fine...he may be interested in playing but he'll stay cool. We've seen an in house trainer (who came to the house, stayed for 3 hours, did not take Indy out and then charged us $75. awesome. thanks.) and have taken him to group "Good Citizenship Training" class. He did really well and was even mostly fine with the other dog in the class, but we decided to postpone the final test until this spring.

So back to my point...we made the decision this weekend to try using the prong collar with Indy. 

We started off with just the traditional leash and collar for him and had a lot of success with traditional training methods when he was a smaller puppy. Then as he started to pack on the pounds and became much stronger than me we decided to try a gentle leader. I highly recommend the gentle leader for people with strong dogs since it takes the power out of any pulling they do. We decided for a brief while to try the simple slip/choke chain collar but when Indy saw a squirrel or another dog he wanted to play with he could drag me around wherever he wanted...resulting in some pretty gnarly injuries and me crying like a child while Chris cleaned gravel out of my gaping wounds and scraped knees.

Needless to say I went back to the gentle leader.

Over the weekend a good friend of mine brought her dog and her husband over for a play date and recommended the prong collar. I've been opposed to this method for a long time, but everything else we've tried doesn't seem to get through to our mutt. He's responsive until he sees another dog or feels threatened. So far I have mixed feelings about it. The collar makes him MUCH more responsive and most of the time he just needs to hear the sound of the chain and will move back in line. Not to mention he's much calmer. 

We had a big test last night as we were about 30 minutes into our 40 minute walk we passed a house with a guard dog who started barking his ass off the minute we walked by. Indy lunged and growled. I corrected him and he still pulled. I'm not afraid of me hurting him. I'm afraid of him hurting himself. The collar is just supposed to pinch their neck, but as he pulled against the collar and let out a whimper, my heart broke in two. But I didn't back down. I gave the collar a firm snap and told him to heel. He obeyed. He wasn't pulling as hard as he would with any other collar and I had much more control. His neck didn't even show a mark and with all that extra skin and fur he wasn't hurt, but I'm sure he felt it. I know the point is to simulate the firm "you better behave" snip of a mother, but when I heard that little guy whimper as he pulled I cringed and when he finally fell in line I scratched his neck and chest and showered him with praise.

I have confidence that this may be the key to communicating with him and correcting his behavior and we're using it correctly and conservatively, but I can't help but hold on to those feelings that a metal chain with prongs all over it is just cruel and I hope we're doing the right thing. Ick. 

"I don't understand what all the fuss is about." 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....OH HI!! Sorry....just a little sleepy today. 

I decided over the weekend that I need to be better about posting on this blog. So...I came up with a new resolution. I'm going to post something every day....ok...I take that back. I'm going to TRY to post something every day. I make no promises as to what you'll see here...but there will be something. I debated whether I should make this a 40 days of lent thing and commit to it for that amount of time, but that seemed strange since I'm not religious and the only reason I even noticed it was lent was because someone brought in treats for Fat Tuesday. It is lent right? 

So the point of this post is...

I haven't had a vacation in almost 10 years. The closest I've gotten is a long weekend in Yosemite with T and N, but I don't think that really counts since two of the days were spent mostly in the car driving to and fro. (yes. fro).

So I've been perusing airlines and various travel websites for ideas and prices on a nice long vacation. I'm thinking sometime in June and taking a whole week. The problem I have is that since I don't vacation and don't travel anywhere fun for work I have no idea where to go. Before I open the floor to suggestions here are the criteria:

*sun and beaches. somewhere tropical or tropicalish (not mexico. too dangerous right now, plus I'm not about to ruin this one vacation with a bad case of Montezuma's revenge).

*relaxing, but with activities if we so desire (ie snorkeling, caves, hiking, or just

sitting on a beach)

*affordable. I'm well aware that vacations are expensive (that's why i haven't taken any), but I'm looking for a good deal. Most bang for my buck here.

Ok. Here is where I ask the intranets for advice...where have you gone? where have you stayed? would you go again? was it worth it? 

It's not mean if they like it.

"Please send for help."

Do-It-Yerselfing....

We've been doing a lot of work on the house since we got the keys and admittedly since moving in progress has slowed. Working during the day and coming home to dust is not fun, but we've been trying to keep at it and although things move slowly, we're getting there. Our first project was to replace the baseboards and door/window trim in the master bedroom. The old baseboards were beat up and falling off and the window trim was caked with most likely 64 years of paint. We pulled everything off and repaired holes in the walls. We've been doing all the work ourselves and I have to say...I'm incredibly impressed with Chris' ability to work a miter saw and my own skills using wood filler to hide nail holes.  Take a look.

Before 

(dog not included in the sale)

After

The next project was the bathroom. When we first saw the house we figured that within a month we would be able to completely gut the bathroom and redo it ourselves. Then as we started in on the master bedroom we got a big dose of reality. Not only the reality of how time consuming DIY home improvement is, but also how each trip to Lowe's was adding up. We've decided to wait on the complete gutting of the bathroom until early next year, but since the original tub was beige/pink and reeeally gross, the sink ugly, dirty and corroding and the paint color a lovely shade of neon salmon, something needed to be done. So I re-glazed the tub myself, Chris and his dad installed a new sink top and faucet, and we painted the vanity and walls. Survey says?

Next on the list is new baseboards, trim and paint in the living room and then a mini facelift on the kitchen until we can completely gut that sucker too. More photos to come I'm sure. Happy Wednesday!