Dog Beach

Took the dogs to the dog beach today. It was low tide so we had lots of room to play. We were there for about an hour and a half. Daisy did a bunch of swimming. Ahi chased other dogs around. They were both tired when we got home and layed in the front yard most of the day. Daisy seems more tired than Ahi and went to bed at about 8 pm!

That has got to be one of my favorite things to do!

Dork

Last nite we went out to a nice dinner with my folks and Jim's folks to thank them for all they do for us. On the way there, Drew kept complaining about how he HATES getting dressed up.....he was wearing clean shorts and a solid colored t-shirt! It was not even collared! I hope he never has to get a real job where he has to actually get dressed up!

Jolly Green Drew

We saw a former neighbor last nite whose mouth dropped open when Drew came riding his bike up to us. She was shocked at his height and was sure he was 5 foot 10 inches. And I said - no way - he is about 5 foot 7 and she insisted he had to be taller than that.

So we went home and measure him. 5 feet 9 inches! She was closer than I was!

Croup

Gracie woke up yesterday morning at 5 am with a striations type cough - that is like croup gone bad. She literally could barely breathe and was whistling and struggling when trying to take a breath. She had gone to bed the night before and was fine. It was super scary and was the closest I have ever come to calling 911 as a mom.

I was reaching way back in my memory banks to try to remember what to do in such situations. Luckily I thought to put her in the shower and the steam slowly made her better. We followed it up with a humidifier, warm tea with honey, lots of 7up and cranberry juice and a whole box of popsicles!

She was better last nite but still got up at 3 am and stood in the shower for awhile because she was coughing - ut it was nothing like the previous nite.

She doesn't seem to be sick - no fever and no other symptoms. I guess time will tell if it turns into something.

Nibbles

So that little Chiweenie is super cute but can be quietly destructive. Yesterday while I was home working, I suddenly got this feeling like something was wrong. I jumped up and ran out to the family room to find Ahi eating my couch!!! My new couch!

Then today I got to the gym and took my Keen shoes out of my gym bag to find nibbles taken out of the heel of one of them!

I guess she is completely over being a rescued, scared dog and is now moved on to being a lively puppy!

We have started calling her "Crazy" instead of "Ahi". Her latest antics are to dive into the tall grass when we are out walking and start rolling around in sheer happiness.

Leapin' Lizards

Last nite, I went on a walk with my dear friend Heather and her daughter Lauren. And we had three dogs with us. We were cruising along when I spotted a baby alligator lizard! Being a person who comes from a long line of lizard catchers, I immediately saw the opportunity! Being a good friend, Heather took the role of dog holder and took all the dogs while I prepared to "hunt" this lizard. I quickly leaped into action and grabbed him on the first try. But then...I had a problem....what do I do with this lizard for the rest of the walk? Luckily, Heather had a water bottle which she agreed to drink quickly so we could use it as a lizard holder!

So I try to put the lizard into the water bottle and it leaps out of my hands! I start jumping around trying to catch it while Heather and Lauren start jumping around trying to get out of the way! At one point it runs right by Heather and I scream "Heather, get it!" And she screams - "No way!" I ended up getting him again and brought him home. Gracie set up a nice little home for him and tomorrow we need to go find little crickets.

For sale alias

Remember the weird things on the the for sale alias at work? Here is anotehr one - this morning someone is selling TWO size 4 wedding dressses! Hmmmm....wonder why one has 2 wedding dresses they want to sell....at work?!?!

Chapel

This week the speaker during Chapel at Drew's school is Bryan Clay, the reigning Olympic champion in the decathlon. He one a gold medal in the 2008 Olympics! Super cool. Can't wait to hear how he is as a speaker to a bunch of kids.

Gear snob

So, I am not a clothing snob or a hotel snob or a restaurant snob. But I am an athletic and activity gear snob! I saw a gal working out today in a pair of tennis shoes that looked to be the quality of payless shoe source tennies and also looked to be about 5 years old. Payless shoe source has its place in this world but it is not to provide quality workout shoes. I wanted to tell the gal that she would likely exercise more and harder if she had the right shoes. When she was doing high knee jogging with a resistance band pulling her back, I was cringing thinking about what it was doing to her feet. Ouch!

Buy good shoes when you are doing athletic activity - it makes a huge difference.

Rain, hail, thunder and banana slugs

We went camping this weekend in the Santa Cruz mountains. We knew that it would rain, but that added to the adventure factor. But - boy did it rain! And hail! And thunder! We were in a tent cabin and it was SOOOO loud! At one point, Drew said to me - "mom its hailing" and I couldn't even hear him even though he was about 12 inches away. We did manage one big walk before the rain started. And we saw a bunch of banana slugs!

St. Theresa's Prayer

We need to say this every morning....


May today there be peace within.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.

May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

Soccer Update

I haven't been posting soccer updates becuase I have been too busy taking care of dog drama. Drew has been playing great in the goalie position....however his team is not doing so hot. They have lost all but one of their games. And one loss was 10to 0! Ouch! But I am so proud of Drew that he is playing his heart out and is not fretting about the losses. It has been a good experience so far.

Chicks with Sticks

Gracie's hockey team continues to crush the boys! They won again on Saturday - 5 to 2. Gracie made amazing saves and played really aggressively. They are in first place with 22 points. Next closest team has 19. Go girls!

A tribute to a little baby

Our dear friends the Walker's have friends whose baby just passed away after a 2 month struggle with heart problems. I followed the ups and downs of this baby's short life and was awed by the love and support shown to this family.

Check put this youtube video that the youth group, that the baby's parents run, did for them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XuMEAiMgTU

Happy St Patty's Day!

A little early - but we just got back from my mom and dads - where we had corned beef and cabbage!

Poker nite

The best statement from poker nite on Saturday nite came from Doug.

He was eating out of a bowl of "Mike and Ike" candy and all of a sudden he says:

"Who put the "Hot Tamales" in the "Mike and Ikes"? That's messed up!"

More doggie drama

I did not have a chance to blog about the 2nd doggie drama of the week. This is a pic of Daisy's foot after she cut it and bled all over the house. I had taken her out for a lunch time walk - came home and immediately jumped on a conference call. During the call, she nudged my shut office door. I opened the door to find blood everywhere! She had been walking around the house with a bleeding foot for about 45 minutes. What a mess. So I wrapped up her foot with some giant human band aids and gauze. She was fine the next day. I think she must have cut her foot on the walk and I did not notice.

If it was the chiweenie's foot I am sure she would have let me know about it right away!

Nothing like a sunny day...

I was doing some yard work today and all my pets were outside with me enjoying the day. I stopped, looked up and saw them all sunning themselves! What a great pic! If a chicken and 2 dogs can live like this in peace, it seems like us humans should be able to manage a more peaceful existence!

Feeling lucky?

Are you still employed and have a full belly? Then you are darn lucky. Share your fortune with others who are not so lucky. The local food banks have seen a huge drop in giving since the holidays and a huge increase in need. You can donate online and in fact, if you do that the money goes farther than if you go purchase the goods yourself because the food banks get deals from manufacturers -- better deals then you can get at Safeway.

You can chose what you want to buy with your donation - tuna fish, peanut butter, cereal, etc. I like to buy cereal and produce because the thought a kid getting to eat a bowl of rice cripies with sliced bananas in the morning because of me makes me very happy!

Anway - check it out:

https://fooddrive.shfoodbank.com/default.aspx

Spot Bonus

I just got word that I got a small spot bonus at work today. Apparently the bonus $ pool was small so it was not a big bonus....but it happens to almost exactly cover the cost of a chiweenie enema! God works in mysterious ways!

Yesterday - in brief

Yesterday was a pretty rough day. You know all aout the Chiweenie enema, which is a story in and of itself. However, it only gets better if I tell you about the rest of the day!

I started out the day with a migraine. I thought it was pretty managable, so I went about my day taking Gracie to ed therapy at 7:30 am. It was a managable migraine from the perspeciteve that I lived thru it....but I was miserable. I was driving to ed therapy with a bag in my lap because I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up.

Migraines make my brain not work right, so I have to struggle to work - which I did -all day - including three conference calls!

Then Gracie decided she felt sick and stayed home from school. But I told her, "you can stay home but you can't talk to me because my head hurts to bad". So she just laid low with the sick Chiweenie on the couch.

Finally around 1 pm, I started coming out of the migraine fog enough to realize how sick the Chiweenie was. And that, of course, led to the vet trip. (See previous post)

Which caused me to miss Drew's soccer - which the lost - 9 to zero - OUCH!

I got home from the vet in time to scarf down a lentil quesidilla (yum) and head to a panel lecture consisting of kids in high school talking about their learning differences, with Gracie. We listened for 2 hours, went to get ice cream and got home at 9:15 pm.

When I look back on the day, I can not believe I was (a) able to hold it together with a migraine and (b) get all that stuff done! Truly an amazing human feat!
Or a truly stupid lady who should have just gone back to bed yesterday!

$450

Let's take a little quiz.

What do you get for $450 dollars these days?:

A. A ticket to Paris
B. A new flat screen tv
C. 4 great tickets to a Sharks game
D. A chiweenie enema
E. All of the above

The answer, of course, is all of the above. Except in reality the only thing it got me was (D) a chiweenie enema!

Poor Ahi has not been feeling good since yesterday afternoon when Auntie Debbie came over to let her out to go potty. She would cry when you picked her up. Actually it was more like a screech. So we have been keeping and eye on her to see if it got worse or better. We thought that maybe she over did it at the cabin this weekend.

But as I worked at home today, I kept a close eye on her. And she literally did not get off the couch all day. It was clear that she was in pain and it was getting worse - not better. The final straw came when Daisy came over to Ahi and very gently gave her a once over. She seemed to look at her and very gently smell and nudge her. Then she looked at me like...."mom, she's sick, you have to do something". So I called the vet and immediately brought her in.

They did an xray and could see her little chiweenie colon was impacted with poop! The cause seems to be little pieces of wild animal bones that she got into this weekend at the cabin. When she would find a bone, I would chase after her to take it away, but she would run and chew at the same time. Apparently she was able to swallow some of the pieces. The little pieces of bones are like shards of glass and hurt their little bellies, which causes them to tense up which causes poop to back up. And then....wa la....you get to spend $450 for a chiweenie enema!

Actually the $450 got us some flea and tick meds and heartworm meds. So, it was quite a deal in the end....no pun intended.


This is a pic of the Chiweenie, post enema.

A momentary happy dance

I have been working with a very worthy non-profit organization in an attempt to get them a $40k grant thru my company's employee foundation. I just received word that they passed the first step in the process and are invited onto the next round (sort of like going to Hollywood on American Idol!). The non-profit is Parents Helping Parents (http://www.php.com/) and the grant is specifically directed towards the Learning Disabilities group at PHP. I am thrilled at just getting to the next step of the process because they had submitted letters of inquiries for the last two years (thru another employee) and didn't make it to the second step!

Book Club Ladies....

All the ladies of the Hot Mama's Book Club,

This book we are reading is hilarious. Please pay particular attention to the chapter titled "Six to Eight Black Men". It had me laughing out loud while at the gym - to the point where people were looking!

Crazy Tent Man

Disclaimer: Mom - you shouldn't read this because you worry too much.

So when we were up at Cherry Lake this weekend, there was a weird guy with a tent right on the water, in the snow. Well - he didn't seem too weird by just looking at him but anyone who tents in the snow on the edge of a lake must be a little off (unless you are my husband :-)). But then Jim talked to him and we decided that - "yes - he was weird". Apparently he had been camping there for 2 weeks! The last two weeks weather were really bad with lots of wind and rain and up there, probably some snow too. It had to be a miserable experince. He had beer spread out all over in the snow (to keep it cold) and he had hotdogs laying out in the snow too. Weirdo.

So, I told my mom not to read this because she worries about us being out in the wilderness. I think she thinks we will be abducted or sniped. Bears are not her concern - people are. So when we run into weirdos, it's fuel for her worry fire!

Morning Favorites

I love steel cut oatmeal as much as I love bagel wednesdays! But for different reasons. This morning, I was rushing to get to the gym because we got back late last nite from the cabin. So I did not have time to make anything to bring for breakfast. So, I decided to slum and go to the cafeteria for regular old oatmeal. That makes it sound bad but in reality, it looked pretty good. I got a nice big bowl and doctored it up with raisans, brown sugar and walnuts. It looked quite yummy!

Boy was I surprised when I got to my desk and dug in....it tasted burned! NASTY! I tried it a few times thinking...."it doesn't look burned". But it tasted bad. So I had to trek back to the cafeteria and get a bagel....which is not my breakfast of choice....unless it is bagel wednesday!

A quiet day in the mountains

Today we are cleaning out the pontoon mama (our pontoon boat and the namesake of my blog). It is so wet you could float a little pontoon boat in it! The tarp filled up with snow and got so heavy that it ripped. Then the snow and rain filled the boat. It's a mess. Jim removed the seats to get it to dry better.

We took a break from the boat and went crawdad hunting! Unforutnately not only did we not catch any -- we did not even see any!! So we had to moved onto something we could actually catch....ladybugs. If you are a long time reader of my blog, you will remember that this is the time of year that the ladybugs hibernate. So they are slow and easy to catch - just our style. We filled up a container to bring home and release on our rose bushes.

Now - back to cleaning.

Snow Play

We went to Cherry Lake yesterday and did a little hiking, a little sledding and a little fishing! The weather was beautiful and there was about 6 inches of snow. Basically a perfect day. Ahi was worn out and got back in the truck after about 6 hours and passed out! In this pic (find the chiweenie in the leopard blanket), she was laying all covered up on the heated seat. She felt like she would catch on fire any minute! Daisy hung with us all day and even did some swimming.....brrrrr!

End of Life

Remember the last snow hu we made? Here is the end of it! We went by it yesterday to check it out and this is what we found....a pile of sticks!

Aerogarden

This is my latest aerogarden - it's cherry tomatos. So far so good. Will take pics as it grows!

Shark!

This is one of Jim's crabbing bouys. It was chewed on by a shark! A land shark! A little black land shark with beady eyes and bat like ears!

Art Show

Today, at work, we are having an art show. The artists are children of the legal department employees and the art work is hung up all over the halls with titles, descriptions and the artists pictures. It is super cute and very creative. Gracie did a painting for my office that I entered in the show. Her and my mom will be coming down this afternoon for a tour of all the art. Here is an email that went out this morning about it:

Dear Patron,

The Sunnyvale Metropolitan Museum of Art cordially invites you to the official debut of the Legal Department's Second Children's Art Show at 4 p.m. today in the Aquaman conference room (award ceremony at around 4:30). A number of leading artists represented in the exhibition will be in attendance to sign autographs and to answer questions about their work.

We hope that you will join us for this unique opportunity.

As a special inducement, artist Talia S will be passing out copies of her book, "The Oceanic Suchness of Endless Becoming: Shamu's Life In Water-Based Media."

Museum crews are already hard at work unpacking and installing paintings in the galleries. Installation will continue throughout the day so please use care not to remove wall-mounted post it notes or to disturb our laser levels and scaffolding. Please also excuse the sound of our drills, hammers, and hoisting cranes--we will strive to minimize noise as we erect the largest exhibition of art ever assembled ... on the second floor of Building D.

We encourage you to enjoy the diverse talents represented in the Show but please remember: A painting is fragile and may be damaged forever by the gentlest brush of your fingertips. In fact, most damage is caused by innocent touches. Yours may not seem like much, but a million visitors’ touches will destroy a painting, a drawing or a photograph so please--help us preserve these works for future generations. Failure to abide by the hands off policy could result in your immediate removal from the property without reimbursement of your cost of admission.

Also, and not so incidentally, you may make an artist or their parents cry.

Thank you for your cooperation.

The Management


Did I mention that this is a great place to work?

Soccer Score

Drew's team lost one to four today. But I got these great pics.

It poured rain during the second half of the game. I had to watch the game from my truck because I was fearful for the safety of my umbrella!

Pie

Check out the apple blueberry pie I made this morning! Can't wait to eat it!

RFB&D

Gracie uses a specilized CD player purchased thru RFB&D that has books on CD. RFB&D stands for Reading for the Blind and Dyslexics and you can literally get thousands and thousands of books on CD's for free. Gracie had the CD player at school while doing research for a report on Thomas Edison. Listening to the CD vs only reading books can give her a greater degree of knowledge while decreasing the frustration of only being able to read books at a certain level.

The player created all kinds of interest in the classroom because it was unusual and cool! One of the kids, who has been in her class for 6 months, questioned her about it. The conversation went like this:

Boy: What is that?
Gracie: My RFB&D player?
Boy: What's RFB&D?
Gracie: Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic
Boy: Oh wow, are you blind?

I almost spit out my dinner when she told me this story last nite!

Poor Neuman

This is my friend, Angie's 6 month old black lab, Neuman. Not only did he suffer the injustice of getting neutered but now he has to wear a cone that is held together by duct tape!

Hiking in the Rain

This weekend we went hiking with my brothers family in the rain. It was great fun! We found a couple newts, got soaking wet and had a picnic from the back of the van.

Remember the bike crash...

Here is a pic of the outcome.

Bike Weekend

This was the weekend that I got the bike from work that has a camera, gps and satellite hooked to it. The bike takes pics every 60 seconds and then uploads them to a photo sharing site.

Because we are morons we had trouble with the technology of the "on and off" switch, so we did not get as many pics as we should have (read: we couldn't figure out which way was "on" and which way was "off"!). But these are some of the good pics. I went up on the hill with Drew and his buddies and road behind them. It was a nice afternoon and you could see way across the valley.

Raining and raining....

I am so tired of wiping 8 dog feet and 2 dog bellies after the dogs go out in our mud bog of a backyard or when we go for a walk! I need to hire a dog paw wiper because its a full time job.

Just when I am ready to give them away, I walk out of my office and see this pic.