Tuesday again!

Its tuesday again, and wonderefully I finished work at 1:30pm and WENT HOME!! Yay an early nap! I was up at the crack of dawn (thanks evil noisy neighbors-- will vent on that later) but at least I got my cake baked for class tonight-- so it could be worse!

The weekend visit to my parents was nice-- I got to work at the basket party for the firehouse and Craig got to haul gravel and help reframe the garage. So it was busy and all that, but a nice visit overall. I even finally dropped off my VERY late mother's and father's day presents-- so that was good too. We then hurried home to meet Craig's parents and return the weener-mutt YAY! They hung out for dinner (homemade fajitas-- want the recipe?) and then headed home the next morning.
So we are now down to our normal contingent of pets-- and no poo or puke to be found!

Temporary control of the house has been regained!

The dog days of summer

A very happy, very wet, very tired Murphy!

After snoozing the morning away on Saturday and a quick lunch at Moe's with Kim. Craig and I headed over to Shelley and Erin's with the Murphinator and some movies. We hung out in the pool for the afternoon to beat the heat (did I mention I kinda hate summer)-- and then grilled up some hot dogs and kielbasa and watched some movies. (Pursuit of Happyness-- very good, I enjoyed-- wholeheartedly recommend and Open Season-- kinda blah... except for the last 25 minutes where the animals attack-- brassiere clad deer antlers being used to slingshot toasting forks with flaming marshmallows-- maybe a kids movie? not a great plot-- some funny moments)

Murph LOVED swimming, and though we left behind enough fur in the pool to build at least 3 more dogs-- he had a great time swimming with their lab Nick. We had to eventually lift the murph out of the pool and make him rest-- he would have swum himself into exhaustion. He was a very very very happy dog.

In an added bonus... adding some Murphy kibble to the weeners diet seems to have helped! no messes on friday night, saturday at all, or sunday!!! woohoo. (she was eating out of his bowl anyways.. so we just went with it)

FYI-- the muttley

FYI... the Weenie is on thawed pre cooked meals that MIL sent with her. They look like brown rice with ground beef, peas and carrots. I am worried that they may be contaminated, and continuing to feed her them may be the problem-- she's been getting sicker the longer she has been on these "baggies" of food.

The internet has lots of ideas-- I may try some chicken (no fat) with some plain oatmeal (a different grain)-- so hopefully tomorrow I can try that. The vet sites I have been reading suggest having her off food and water for 12 hours to try and clear everything up--- so we may end up trying that too. She's still gobbling down food and water without pausing to breathe--- so maybe giving her stomach a chance to settle for a little will help. (At least, I sure hope so....)

Keep your fingers crossed.

not strep.. well, I think?

So Nyquil did the trick last night and I was actually able to sleep. YAY! That helped a lot. Today I feel better, not great-- but better, so I think probably not strep.

Last night I met Leah's mom and got my translating duties figured out, then went for pizza "Old world style" The sauce was over the cheese... odd, but tasty. Craig and I met Mike and Leah's family and hung out for awhile. Then we tied 130 little multi colored bows on their programs. So, I have paid back the time she helped me tie bows on all my programs.

Tonight is rehearsal and rehearsal dinner-- yay food!

mini-doglet crapped 4 times last night in our bedroom doorway. and then vomited huge piles on the rug... what do I do with her?!?!?! The food she is getting is obviously not agreeing with her, but its what we were told to feed her. Any suggestions for gentle on puppy stomach meals? Cause a few more days of this... and well... I'm either going to super-glue her back end shut or she's going to have to be an outdoor dog. (ok, I'm only venting, but really... something has got to change)

Strep? and other ramblings

So I think I may have Strep Throat... ugh. I don't like this. My throat hurts-- keep me awake all night kinda hurt, but no fever. So do I try and get a doc appt or just muddle on?!?! Is this just some little viral thing that will pass or am I going to suffer if I don't go get some antibiotics now.

Oh yeah.. and this morning, my car started smoking. Yuck. I really need to get a new car. and soon. I hate to say goodbye to the blazer, but it barely runs anymore-- its just not reliable. I need something that I KNOW will start-- and gets some better gas mileage too. Time to start looking more seriously for a new (to me) car. Not an expense I am looking forward to at all.

Work is ok, we're getting a new imaging system in today that could make my life a LOT easier-- that is, if it works. I have to go demo it at 1pm. Keep your fingers crossed. Green glowing mice are good!

In other news-- Winnie is a moron. After her long walk this morning, she came inside and immediately crapped on the rug. Then turned around and ATE it?!?! WTF? This dog has serious issues.

so far so good!

So day one of crate training the poo machine I declare a success!

I got home from work, let her out of the crate-- took her for a walk immediately-- she went OUTDOORS-- no mess in the crate nothing! sooo yay!

Then we come back in-- she happily wanders around-- gets a drink and then goes to lay down and sleep-- IN HER BOX. I didn't do anything-- I came back in the room and she had settled her self down in there and fallen asleep! YAYAYAYAY!!! Since I have been home she has wandered in and out of the crate quite happily as long as I just leave the door open--- she comes when I call and then sometimes just goes back in the crate on her own--- there may be hope for the little monster after all! She seems to get that the crate is HER den and is comfy there. Lets hope this continues---
No poo on my floor!!!!!!
Yay!
I will have to get a pic up here of her chilling in the crate-- she seems very at peace there.

Final Cake Course

We had class one of the last cake decorating course last night-- Fondant and Gumpaste-- we dutifully picked up the tools and I packed all the items required for class this week and headed off-- but class was USELESS this week.
This week's topic-- tinting fondand and covering cakes with fondant-- I had that mastered 7 months ago-- BOOOOOO.

So I am hoping next week will be better-- if nothing else, Craig and I have picked a theme for the 2 cakes this course-- countries. So stay tuned for the current plan of one Ireland cake and one Spain cake-- this should be interesting.

(oh... and we may get in trouble... cause-- well, I can lay fondant better than the teacher-- sooo... well, I may have had to help fix her demo cake-- so... should be an interesting course)

The poo-machine crapped in the house AGAIN. So she's in the Murph's crate while we are not home. She needs to learn that she can't poo where she sleeps-- and she needs to have a small sleeping area for awhile to enforce that. (Not that murphy's crate is small by any definition)Hopefully we can get the mutt trained before too too long-- cause ugh... 4 year old neurotic midget dogs are not my thing-- and my patience is strechted VERY thin with her. Craig got Murphy trained, so hopefully he can work a miracle on this little monster.

This week so far.

Monday brought a picnic at Shelley and Erin's-- yay! I made pierogie bake *yum*-- not fancy, but so tasty-- with a stick of butter how could it not be! We had lots of grilled food, got to swim (that was a great treat on a hot day) and I played croquet. Over all a very nice day.

Tuesday was back to work-- then Roy brought up the poo machine winnie and returned murph to us. The cat is terrified and has spent the last 2 days hiding in a cardboard box in a room closed off with a baby gate-- poor thing. shes's miserable. Winnie has poo'd in the house 2x so far and peed all over a rug--- luckily, she was confined outside of bedrooms and the large oriental rugs, so it was only on a throw rug and could be washed-- still--- she is not on my good list right now. She better straighten up and behave-- and quickly. She's getting walked as much as we can with work schedules--- she's going to have to adapt and quick-- or I will be a very very very unhappy girl.

Wednesday brought my summer internship kid to the lab. His name is Will. He just finished his sophomore year at Temple and will be working with me this summer (til early August) so we'll see how that all goes. Then it was wings night-- this week I tried wings from scratch-- some deep fried then coated with a franks hot sauce/butter/steak sauce blend and some baked in a honey-soy-citrus glaze I made up-- both turned out pretty well I must say! We played Wii! I may be addicted-- its a video game that doesn't make you play like a video game-- if the character on the screen sword fights, you move the controller like a sword-- tennis, like a tennis racket, hula hoop... well.. you put it on your hips and hula away. it is very very very amusing-- and thankfully, much simpler than the traditional style games-- very little time to learn--and great to play in a group! All in all a fun evening.

Today-- well, the report on today will have to wait til its over... but so far so good.

A little bit of landscaping.

This weekend I did my best to procrastinante a little more and not work on my seminar-- ok, so I worked on it some... and I have a week yet.. so I will be ok.

On Saturday my friend Leah and I drove down to King of Prussia for the day. She'd never been and it seemed like a good way to spend the day-- so off we went. I managed to get a little bit of new makeup. I really like this bare minerals stuff-- it doesn't seem to set off my acne and it is pretty much idiot proof to put on, so a great combination for me! So I picked out a new eyeshadow ( a glittery green called "envy") and a new blush called glee. Yay. Meanwhile Craig and Mike (Leah's fiance) went to see Spiderman 3, they gave it pretty bad reviews. We all went to dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill afterwards and they make really wonderful bread! We topped it off with a walk to Maggie Moo's -- YUM, seriously wonderful ice cream. I got carrot cake ice cream with teddy grahms mixed in- DELICIOUS!

Today we got a little bit of landscaping done-- so here are some pictures!

Craig pulled out the plastic edging I had in and built me a lovely brick-- this should keep the grass out of my flower beds and make it easier for him to mow right up next to them. Plus it looks great!

Here are some normal grape hyacinths I have planted.

And here are my mutant purple cauliflower hyacinths. I have no idea what happened. About 1/3 of my grape hyacinths came up looking like this! They still smell lovely and are a pretty color- they are just pretty weird looking!

This it the back of our garage (the side that faces our house). We planted the lilacs (the tall shrubs) and the burning bushes (the short shrubs) and a handful of white mums (the tiny shrubs in front of the bushes) last year. Today we added the trellis and a clematis to help conceal the ugly grey electrical conduit we had to have to get electricity in the garage. Here's hoping it works-- if nothing else though, I am thrilled that the $1.50 salvaged clearance lilacs from lowes are looking perfect!


This time we found a great tree in the clearance stash at Lowe's-- A Japanese Red Maple. We'd been looking for some sort of "small" decorative tree for the front yard, and there it was! We put it in much to the amusement of our old lady neighbors who thought it was very very funny to be planting a tree (I have no idea.. they are out on their porch all day, I think maybe they were laughing at Murphy trying to "help") So we now have a new tiny tree in our yard. Hopefully it makes it, but in the worst of cases, it was only $3-- so we can't complain too much! The grass is all brown patchy because we were patching the sod with parts we dug up. The Murph does a number on the grass-- I think he must pee straight hydrochloric acid or something. Anyway, we took advantage of the healthy grass we had to dig up to patch a bunch of bad spots in the yard.

That was our weekend, off to try out a new recipe. I will share if it is any good!

Anyone want a dog? One naughty dog for sale!

Here he is. One very sugar high spoiled rotten pup.

He got into a 2 pound bag of powdered sugar while we were at work on Friday and dragged it around the house. ahh... sticky sugar floor, sticky sugar walls, and a sticky sugar dog. Such a lovely suprise when I needed the house clean for the bridal shower the next day.

He was soooo happy with himself though, hyper, but happy.

Murphy, Our golden Retreiver

Murphy's collection of stuffed frogs. Craig went a little crazy with the skee-ball and won me all these stuffed frogs. No sooner did we walk in the house than the Murph claimed them as his and tried to fit all three in his mouth! I managed to catch this shot of him guarding them all before he ripped any legs off.