We have a problem

Time to talk about those unexpected expenses.
 No one likes to admit that they have a problem or their child is bad. Well my children are my pets and one isn't the perfect angel I would wish he would be. I have a hard time telling people that, I want people to think I have everything under control. A lot of his issues do stem from the 6 months we didn't own him, the crucial time to train, socialize and break bad behaviors. We're having a hard time because of this, but we can't blame everything on that even though I wish we could. 

Makoa and Enna, like I've said before, aren't stranger lovers. Makoa will become fearful of new people if fast moves or actions occur and the fear triggers nipping. Don't think you cant come to our house anymore because of this, he doesn't bite and nip everything and anything, it's more when he's startled. This has caused me great worry, I want this to stop but I didn't know what to do.
We heard of a training facility that's by far more knowledgeable than Petsmart from a friend/ex co-worker. I gave them a call and explained our issues. John was not convinced. He was angry that the trainer wanted us to bring Enna and that she wasn't going to focus on just this one problem. I tried to explain that she wanted to see how they interact with each other and with us and help with all problems. He also wasn't happy that it wasn't going to be in our home first. It was cheaper going to their facility (not much though, still $75 an hour) first and the trainer said that she could help us find ways to break Makoa's bad habits. I never fully convinced him that it was a good idea, but he agreed to come with me anyway.

I called two weeks ago and the only slot the trainer had open was 2 PM on the 27th of August, so I got John to only work a half day and asked for the same.
After arguing with each other on the way down there, we did learn a few things to help Makoa and ease some of our issues but all in all I dont feel like it was worth the $75 and I know if I dont feel it John definitely doesn't. We did maybe 5 minutes of actual training, the rest was asking questions and telling us what we needed to work on.
I was impressed though that the trainer had researched our breed and knew how to handle them. It wasn't the Petsmart thing of them telling us that we didn't/don't socialize them enough and we need to force them on people, it was "I'll put my hand out, they sniff, they get a treat and that's that". I loved that she said, "Don't force them to do it, they dont like people, it's their nature. They can be civil with people and that's all we ask. They don't need to be in a stranger's lap at all times to be good dogs." I FINALLY had someone understand my dogs! It was such a nice feeling.

Getting John to tell me his true feelings about the whole experience will never happen, that's just they way John is, but I know he's not totally sold on the facility. I would like to have one at home session ($90, yikes) and I would like to do some of the classes they offer (cheaper, but not by much). I feel like they have something to offer and actually going to a class to train will be better than this one on one thing we had. That is if I can get John to agree.

So there you have it. My life isn't perfect, my dogs aren't perfect and my marriage isn't perfect, but I guess that's life. I'll except all my imperfections and try to fix the things I can.

Toy love

Last Saturday John found a stuffed elephant that he wanted to buy Makoa. Knowing that dog, I knew he'd have it destroyed  in a matter of hours so I told John that if he wanted to buy it he'd have to clean up the stuffing.
This is what our family room has looked like the past couple of days.

Makoa had the sound box ripped out in a matter of minutes and the trunk torn open by the first hour. He's the biggest toy lover I've ever seen! I think it's because as a young pup he didn't have many, if any, toys. From the start of the day to the end he usually has a toy in his mouth.
This is how much he loves toys:

This use to be a frog at one point in time. Now all that's left is his poor, little head. Makoa and Enna will still carry it around so I just can't bring myself to throw it away. This is the 3rd frog that has joined the toy pack, soon he'll have to replaced with #4.

I'm sure Mr. Elephant will look like Mr. Frog in just a matter of days.

p.s. Are you tired of hearing about my pets? Well that sucks, guess you should read another blog.

That darn cat

This is what I came home to last night:

What a goose, just hanging with the water bottles I guess.

This is where Sophi decided to hang out the rest of the night: (please excuse the dust, remember we're remodeling that room)

She must like blu-rays as much as we do, too bad she kept turning it on and off.

Bread

I love having home-made bread, but didn't make it very often because I hated the process of mixing the dough. I inherited an old Bosch Mixer over the weekend, it's a lot like a Kitchen Aide but more compact.

Mine looks a lot like this, but it's older. The mixer arm can be moved down so that it's parallel with the stand...does that make sense? It also came with the mixing tools in the picture, two mixing bowls, a blender attachment, slicer/shredder attachments, a citrus juicer, and a meat grinder. Not sure when or why I'd use a meat grinder but I have one!

Because of this wonderful mixer I'm making bread like there's no tomorrow! I just throw all the ingredients in and let the bread hook mixer do all the work. Sunday I made French bread that we used for our French bread pizza and yesterday I made Italian Cheese bread for dinner (and my breakfast) today.

Here's the Italian Cheese bread recipe since it's too delicious not to share and I've made it a lot. The words in parenthesis are how I change the recipe to meet my needs.

2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
3 cups warm water
3 tablespoons shortening
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
(1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese)
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
(I usually divide the recipe in half to only make one loaf)

In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the shortening, sugar, salt and 4 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Add the cheeses, garlic powder and onion powder. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Do not let rise. (When I'm not in a hurry I let the bread rise for an hour, it's not as dense and doesn't take as long to bake) Divide in half; shape into two loaves. Place in two greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pans. Do no let rise. (again I let it rise if I'm not in a hurry) Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown (I've found that if I didn't rise the bread it takes more like 40 minutes to completely bake, 30 if I did rise it). Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

Once the cheese bread is gone, which I expect to be by tomorrow at the most, I'm going to make some rolls. Then maybe I'll be brave and make a sour dough starter for my favorite bread of all time. :) I'm loving this mixer!

Need a place to stay?

We now have a bed in our guest bedroom. Finally!! Now John's brother will have a place to sleep when he house sits.

We got a queen size mattress set from my Grandma's house so we moved our set down to the guest room.
I know the room looks sad, white and empty but it looks better now than it did a few days ago. It was full of home remodeling crap that had to be relocated.

We have plans to remodel the room but the family room needs to be finished first. I'm bored of the family room, no more design planning just work so I'm already planning the guest room. I bought curtains already and have my favorite bed sets saved on my Amazon wish list :)

perfume bottles

I have a collection (can it be a collection with only two?) I have started a collection of glass Egyptian style perfume bottles. My grandma had one, I had always admired it and wanted one of my own. John's family bought me a really pretty one for my birthday and I bought this one off of etsy.com for $3.

I'm not going to go crazy with the bottles since I don't like clutter or multiple things that I have to dust, but I think a few pieces that I find through out the years would be nice.

Me wantie!

Esty.com has become an addiction for me. I surf through the site for hours just seeing what homemade goodies they have, luckily I have been able to be good and not buy anything (except for a perfume bottle that was only $8 so I just had to have it) but I don't know if I can resist the urge not to buy this stuff!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Jrisco?ref=seller_info hand paints ceramics and they're so cute. I'm pretty sure I need this teapot/teacup but with sunflowers painted on it.

This teapot is also very cute (I like the flower one more) and she'll paint whatever letter you want on it. I don't even freaking drink tea, but I need one!

I'm also pretty sure I need these pet food and water bowls. They're dishwasher safe so they're better than what I have for the dogs now and Sophi broke her food bowl so she's eating out of Tupperware now.

I also want to order this cute Christmas ornament for someone special.

Now do you need one of these cute things too? I'm pretty sure you do!

p.s. My mother in law and I should be starting up an Esty shop soon to sell some of her embroidery, should be pretty fun.

Radio and other stuff

Well now they're advertising in Spanish on my country stations, I'm not pleased. I don't know what they're saying but I'm pretty sure its, "Let's take over the USA! Make it the new Mexico!!" Was that racist? I don't care, they shouldn't be allowed to advertise in a foreign language on the radio!
I think I'll find the Spanish station and advertise in English, see how they like it!

Anyway, enough of my racist ranting (that wasn't bad though, you should hear John), the basement is coming along slowly.
Last Friday John and his brother finished putting up the sheet rock while I was at work and when I got home I helped John put in the light fixture for over the bar (by help I mean I held the flashlight and screws, then looked for the screws when John dropped then, and ran up and down the stairs to flip the breaker). After frying two $25 dollar switches I made John Google a diagram since obviously he did something wrong. Once he learned that he wired it a smidgen wrong I made him test the light with a cheapo light switch because I didn't want to shell out another $50 for switches. Well it works but the light isn't fully up, that's why they're no pictures.
We used 1/4" sheet rock since its lighter than 1/2" and gave us a 1/4" of space (with 7' ceilings you need all the space you can get) but because of this John cant make the anchor screws for the lighting wire (remember we're using these lights) stay in so he hasn't put it up. I haven't whined about him trying to find a way to make it work though since Saturday he was at Speed Week with my parents, Sunday he helped me deep clean the house and Monday he mowed our jungle of grass and fixed the swamp cooler (again, the stupid pump went out so it wasn't cooling the house down).

Friday night we went to see Rob Schneider at Wiseguys in West Valley. I'm a retard and forgot to bring my camera, but the show was awesome! I've been to concerts but this was different because I was thhhiiissss close to a celebrity!!! We were only a few rows from the stage so I could actually see him and he wasn't a blurry blob. He was so funny and down to earth. He quoted a few lines from his movies and I laughed so hard when he started, "It's me, Jessica!!! Do you remember in second grade when you moved here from Arkansas? Everybody threw rocks at you because you talked funny and your front two teeth were brown!" Oh Jessi, that movie is the greatest!
After the show Rob stood outside and you could meet him, I met a celebrity!!! again no camera :( but it was still awesome! John really wants to go the Waynes brothers in September so hopefully we'll have the extra cash to go and I'll bring my camera!

Speaking of extra cash, I don't see the basement/bar getting finished anytime soon. Some unexpected costs came up, maybe if I'm brave enough I'll admit those unexpected costs later...no I'm not pregnant.
So we have to get these things taken care of, then save money for Enna's breeding (if our breeder gets her act together, but that's another story all together) which will probably take place in November, then it's our anniversary (for which I have a wicked, awesome present for John) and then it's Christmas. So as you can see a lot of money will need to be spent the last few months of the year meaning a saving of our pennies so other things wont get finished.  

p.s. again John's estimation of carpet cost was WAY under what it's really going to be. I'm not sure when or how we're going to get carpet and I refuse to put it on credit!!! I should just know by now that if John says one price I should double it.

ceiling, epic journey part 4

This last weekend was the definition of busy. I don't think I rested one bit so now I'm dragging this Monday morning.
Friday John picked me up from work to hang out with some co-workers and we were out until 1 AM, way past my bedtime, I'm an old grandma and usually hit the hay at 10 PM.
Saturday we got a late start and headed to Lowe's around noon. Just as a side note, John is terrible at guessing costs. Every project we start he says, "This will cost such and such" and he's usually way off. The ceiling was no exception, after spending $100 more than anticipated and two hours later we left Lowe's.

My brain was fried from picking lights so I wasn't too excited to get started, but things started out smoothly. John changed out the main lights first and I stood around like a bump on a log watching since there was nothing for me to do. Luckily it didn't take him long and we started running speaker wire right after.
We went to Bose in Park City on Thursday to pick out the surround sound that we wanted so we could finish the ceiling now instead of having to take down all our hard work to put in the surround sound later. It was just to pick it out though, I let the sales rep talk me into the most expensive one there (he had really good points and I liked the size of the speakers better) so it'll probably have to be our tax return. Until then we'll just have speaker wire hanging out of the wall, no biggie.

John was in charge of measuring the sheet rock since I can't seem to learn how to read a tape measure and I got the lovely task of holding it above my head as he screwed it in place. I should receive a gold medal for holding things above my head. My arms would get tired so I'd rest the sheet rock on my head. If you ever need someone to hold something above their head for an extended amount of time give me a call.
Only one small glitch while we were working, John measured a little wrong so one of the lights was placed wrong, but he fixed it after we had the sheet rock up.
We didn't get too far, only a 1/3 of the ceiling was put up since our Sunday was run here, do that, be here all day long. I don't think we were home for more than 4 hours all day. We strolled into the house at 9:30 PM with no dinner in our bellies and exhausted from the day. I think John had a bowl of cereal but I couldn't keep my eyes open so I fell into bed.

I hope this week we get it all finished since the weekend will be another full one. If I feel up to it tonight I'll post pictures of our work, but don't be too disappointed if they don't go up until the ceiling is done.

p.s. The lights are so much brighter now than the old ones so they show all the stains on the carpet. John was disgusted so I guess new carpet is coming before cabinet doors. I'm pretty excited about that!

love

Have I told you lately how much I love this dog? She just melts me heart and can do no wrong (ask John, I never punish her, she's so spoiled).

I don't care if it's wrong to have favorites. She's my baby!
I'm going to tell you a secret, I wasn't a little dog person until this fluff ball came into my life. In fact I wanted a Great Dane :) When we looked into the Klee Kai breed I wanted to get a bigger size. Kora, our first puppy, was guessed to grow into a miniature (over 13 inches high and up to 15 inches high). But when she became sick our breeder told us that we could have her sister who was guessed to be a big toy (13 inches and smaller). I have come to love this tiny girl (who happens to be 12 3/4 inches) and I love her shock value when I tell people she's full grown.
She's the perfect lap dog since she only weighs 7 pounds, while camping she sleeps on my lap in front of the fire for hours.
I hope to always have the toy size klee kai in my life, I don't think I could live without it.

p.s. she rode on the arm rest like that for the whole drive to Tooele. John took the pictures so you can scold him for driving while photographing.
p.p.s. In case you're wondering Makoa has made it into the standard size (the biggest klee kai size) at 15 1/4. He was guessed to become a toy, how funny is that?

Dahlias!

This one tricked me, I thought it was going to be white because that's what the blooms on the bottom of the plant are, but no it's peach.Good thing it's pretty or I'd have to teach it a lesson.

Not a dahlia, but these lilies are sure pretty, aren't they? All of them have started to bloom in my garden.

baby bibs

Here are the completed bibs I made for John's cousin's baby, Owen.

I think they turned out pretty cute.

Fog

That's what my brain is in today, a fog. I'm still trying to nip this cold in the bud, but I went into work anyway. I'm surprised I didn't crash on the way in since I wasn't focusing on the road at all.
People talk to me and I cant even pretend to be interested, I wouldn't be surprised if my eye lids started to droop and I drool a little during their convos.
Looking sideways out my eyes makes me really sleepy so I have to turn my whole head to look at things, if I sit too long without moving I feel like I'm floating...so weird....and I haven't even taken any Dayquil today.

Getting ready this morning was a feat, after every action I'd have to sit down to take a breather. Put on underwear = lay on bed for 5 minutes, comb out wet hair = sit on toilet and try to keep head upright, put mascara on one eye = ponder if it's really necessary to have it on both, lets not even get into what it was like drying my hair. Everyone should just be glad that I don't look homeless and I match, for Pete's sake.

In hindsight I probably should have stayed home one more day, but I didn't want my co-workers thinking that a common cold had killed me. Snuggling with my puppies does sound like heaven right now though...shhh don't tell John that the dogs slept on our bed with me all day yesterday.

When it rains, it pours

I was so excited for my weekend. John and I were going to go camping with the dogs and really enjoy ourselves.
The camping did happen. John had Friday off so he went up to Settlement Canyon early to grab a spot, Settlement isn't anything to call home about, it's only about a mile long and not high up in elevation so the temperatures are the same as the city, but it's only 40 minutes away from home so that's why we went there.

John grabbed a great spot next to a creek, my favorite type of camping, and I went up after I got off of work at 6. That's when the ruckus started. A boy scout troop found a hidden spot behind us and were doing what boys do best, being loud and annoying.
We tried out best to ignore them and enjoy ourselves. We started a fire to roast hot dogs for dinner and banana boats for dessert. There were bats flying above our heads and eating all the bugs, it was fun to watch.

We went to bed around 11 when the boys finally decided to shut up but around 3 in the morning we heard banging in our camp site. John unzipped the window and shined our flashlight out to find that we were being visited by a skunk. The flashlight scarred him away for a couple hours but he was back by 5 trying to get into the dogs food, John moved the food container to the table and our skunk friend didn't come back.
We could hear the boys get up around 7, but they were just cleaning up camp. Finally around 8 it was peaceful again so we caught a for more Z's before getting up to make breakfast.

I woke up to what I thought was allergies, I sneezed 7,652 times before I decided I couldn't take it and drove into Tooele to get some medication.
When I got back and took my meds I zonked out in a camp chair for a good 3 hours, I thought the benedryl had knocked me out when it turns out my body just wanted to rest to get better.
The dogs were getting restless, but I was too tired and groggy to take them on a hike so we unleashed them and walked down to the creek.
Enna was being so bad, she kept running really far away and I had to call her name 3 times before she'd turn around. Once she came close to me she'd turn around and sprint off again as if saying, "Okay I came back, bye!" Makoa, our normally good boy, was following her bad example and after 30 minutes of that I was done. I clipped both of them back on their leashes and went back to my nap.

Right before dinner it started to sprinkle. We hopped it would just blow over but that sprinkle turned into a down pour. We tried to hold out as long as we could but soon our shade structure wasn't keeping us dry. We booked it to John's truck and decided to drive to Tooele to get some dinner and see if the rain would stop.
The rain quite 45 minutes after it started but by that time the dogs were muddy, we were muddy and my cold was really kicking my butt. We packed up our wet stuff as quickly as we could and headed home.

I didn't sleep a wink Saturday night, I even thought to be mean and wake John up to go buy me some cold medicine, but I was nice and didn't. Instead I went down stairs and slept on the couch with the portable fan blowing full speed. I finally fell asleep at 2 AM and wasn't woken up until 11 AM when John came downstairs. He had already pulled out all our wet camping gear and had it set up in the back yard to dry. I kept apologizing for not helping but my head felt like it weighed 50 pounds and I just wanted to sleep.

John put everything away and let me wallow in my zombie state, he might have complained in his head but I didn't hear him say one bad thing.
We decided that we cant go camping together, whenever we do we get rained on.

p.s. if this post doesn't make one bit of sense and is full of spelling/grammatical errors I'm blaming it on being drugged up, cold medicine has become my new best friend.