clean floors, dirty paws

I don’t know about you, but I have an ongoing and ever changing list of things I will not, or at least will TRY not to do. And unless I stop to think about it, I falsely assume that I am doing a pretty good job at staying on track. Well, I’ve been thinking about it lately and it seems that for every rule I have for myself I also have a built in excuse. And handy as these excuses are, they are starting to make me look like a bit of an asshole. Let’s go ahead and start off with the rule I am currently breaking; no eating sweets after 7pm. This usually lasts a grand total of 3 days and then I start in with the first excuse of, “well, I haven’t had any treats in 3 days and it is ONLY 7:05, one little cookie isn’t going to hurt.” Then I move on to the next excuse, the one I used tonight which is, “I want some damn ice cream and I’m a grown ass woman and I make my own decisions and I’M EATING IT!” As though anyone was arguing with me. I guess technically I am arguing with myself about

This weekend we have house guests and Abner is OBSESSED with a certain one; her name is Regan and she is two and a half years old. I think the obsession is mutual because for the past two days he has been following her around and if he is out of her sight, she is looking for him. They played with his crate, she locked him in and talked to him through the bars, they played "share the Cheerios" and tug of war and chase and give kisses AND I thought I might die of cute overload. I think Abner wants a friend that is his size to hang out with all the time. It must be hell on his neck always having to look up at everyone. Maybe I should book him a nice massage, see if it improves is sassy attitude. Perhaps all this time I thought he was ignoring me he was really just sick and tired of lifting his head in recognition...hummm Anyway, I tried ALL weekend to get a good shot of the two of them but of course every time I went to get a camera or either one of them saw a camera they s

Remember when you were a little kid and a short twenty minute car ride took FOREVER? I imagine that is how our dogs feel every time we go somewhere int he car. I am sure if they could, they would chant, "are we there yet?" the entire time. I'm SO glad my children can not speak!

So, I know posting has been a bit light lately and that I even went as far as to write a kind message about it and promise to change my slacker ways. I also know that that was like 5 days ago and I haven't posted a single good thing since, TOTAL LIAR RIGHT? The catch is, I have a very good reason. My sweet father in law Patrick suffered a heart attack and Ryan and I went to be with him. Let me first off tell you that he is doing WONDERFUL, very lucky man. He had 99% blockage of a main artery that supplied his body with 60% of its blood, kind of a BIG DEAL! Luckily they were able to go in and place a stint to open the artery back to full flow. The doctor showed us a video of the procedure and it really was miraculous. We got to see how slowly the blood was moving and how labored his heart was before and then how quickly and freely it was pumping afterward. I mean AMAZING SHIT! He then told us that Patrick was extremely lucky and was fixing to have a MAJOR heart attack but only

As you know, a lot of planting has been going on around here and Ryan has had help every step of the way. Not from me of course, unless you count my generous contribution of beer, but his loyal sidekick is never far away and always willing to lend a hand weather it is digging a hole or surveying the land. Am I crazy or did that last run on sentence sound kind of poetic?

At least twice a day, but sometimes ALL F-ING DAY, Abner goes crazy. This typically starts with a bark and turns into a full on run around the house doing burnouts while barking and jumping and growling and barking some more and getting out toys and killing them and did I mention BARKING. Sometimes he has a solo freak out but every once and a while Lilly or Ryan will join in making it a fun family afair, a real treat for the ears. The other night Ryan and I were minding our own business, sitting in the living room when Abner woke up from a nap, jumped up onto the couch and started barking insensitively INTO MY EAR. I was like what the...did he have a dream about barking and HAVE to wake up and bark? Does he even know what the hell he is doing? Obscure beast of a dog! We looked at him like he was crazy, which he really is, and he just kept on barking until finally giving up and falling back to sleep. It looked a lot like this but much LOUDER!

I don’t know if you know this or not, but Ryan has quite the green thumb. Kind of like a modern day Midas except everything he touches turns green rather than gold. I on the other hand have a black thumb…ring finger, middle finger, pointer and pinky. I once kept a house plant alive for an entire year and when I told one of my friends who has multiple house plants she looked at me, looked at the plant and informed me that, “those plants are impossible to kill.” Thanks a lot asshole, there went my one plant accomplishment. I guess plants have just never been my thing. I mean, I appreciate how beautiful they are and I like them around me, but they are just so needy. The plant needs water. Now it needs more sunshine. Oh wait, too much sunshine. You need to aerate the roots before you plant it, you need to tickle the blossoms, you need to fertilize and prune and shape and trim and blah blah blah. See, not my thing. Fortunately for me, gardening is Ryan’s thing. Without him I’d

Not that many people check my blog on a regular basis, but for the one or two of you that do, I am sure you have noticed that there hasn’t been much to read as of late. I apologize. I have three or four almost finished posts just sitting here, waiting to be edited but I can’t seem to wrap my brain around doing anything about it. Every time I sit down to write lately I freeze up, literally feel like I cannot write a SINGLE word. And if I do come up with something I delete it just as fast because it makes NO SENSE. Kind of like this post. I mean really, does this make any sense at all? Coincidently I have been reading a really interesting book about adult ADD and some of the hallmarks are not completing tasks and not being able to focus. Humm, moving on… Anyway, stay tuned because if I can actually figure out a way to get some of my ideas that come to me in the middle of the night or while in the shower on paper we might actually get somewhere.

The other morning I woke up around 6am to pee and when I cam back to bed, this is what I saw... I assumed Ryan let him into bed but it turns out that while I was up he snuck in, crawled under the covers and fell fast asleep. How did he fall asleep in the time it took me to pee you may wonder. Well, he didn't. He likes to shut his eyes and breathe heavily any time he thinks we are going to move him and he doesn't want to be moved. I so badly wanted to kick is ass out of my spot, but those little feet were too cute to move.

I think someone needs braces. I am obviously kidding, but did you know they actually have DOG ORTHODONTICS! You can get braces for your dog! Supposedly a dog dentist will only put them on for medical reasons, but something tells me there are a few show dogs out there whose owners can't feed them caramels if you know what I mean... Mmmm, caramel

I was jogging along the rec. trail in Monterey the other day when I noticed some of Abner's extended family sunning themselves on the beach. If you look really closely you can see his grandfather.

Lilly's 7th birthday was this weekend and we made sure it was a birthday to remember. We started the day off with a nice refreshing trip to Carmel beach followed by a visit to Diggity Dog, a rad dog boutique down the street. When we walked in she and Abner's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates with delight at the huge bins of free flowing TREATS. Now, this is not our first rodeo and we know to walk past the bins quickly or it would just be a fight to keep her skull out of them. I figure letting her go in Diggity Dog would be like letting me go at an all you can eat ice cream buffet. Once she gained her composure, aside from the drool dripping from her jowls, we let her pick out a bone, a treat and a piece of doggy birthday cake. Abner of course got a few treats as well, but no cake as he cannot chew it with his ridiculous bully teeth. The store clerk, noticing that we were getting doggy cake, asked who's birthday it was and proceeded to give Lilly and Abner more t