Hump Day

It's Wednesday evening, and I just uploaded a bunch of pictures to Facebook.  I also added a Picasa album to the left from our trip to McDowell Mountain Regional Park a couple of weeks ago.  It was so amazing out there. I'm going to write an Examiner article about that place very soon.

I would encourage you to continue to visit my Examiner link to the left.  If you subscribe to e-mail on the site, you'll get an e-mail whenever I publish a new article.  For the 2nd month in a row, my link was included in Good Sam Club's CyberSam newsletter.  Last month, I got over 15,000 page views.  So far this month, I have over 6,000.  While this isn't enough on which to quite my job and live, it is a great start!!  And I appreciate your continued support! 

Saturday was Halloween, and I took a couple of cute pictures of the boys in their Halloween costumes.  They had them on just long enough for me to snap the picture.  Clothing of any sort acts as a straight jacket to them, and they freeze up.  Sure wish I could have taken them trick-or-treating in their little suits!!

We're heading North this weekend.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Picture:  Drama and Brother Boy in their Halloween costumes.

Saturday Night

It's Saturday night and we are home watching a movie.  We had a busy day.  We got up at 5:45 (thank you Drama and Brother Boy) and took the boys for a walk about 6:30.  About 8, we left to go to Cigna for me to get a flu shot.  After that, we stopped at a few garage sales.  Very disapointing.  Lots of nasty, gross stuff for sale!  We then went to Ross to exchange a lighted dog leash that didn't work.  Then we went to the Dollar Tree to get some LED flashlights.  We tried to take the dogs in, but we got kicked out because they sell food there and said the health department doesn't allow them to have dogs in there.  Next we got on the road to IKEA to return the Poang chairs.  We discovered that they don't fit in the space in the motor home where we wanted to put them.  Fortunately they were still boxed up and the covers in plastic. 

After IKEA we came home and relaxed.  I did some laundry and we took cat naps in our recliners.  About 3:30 we decided to get cleaned up and head out for dinner.  On the way, we stopped at CostCo and returned the medicine cabinets we bought since we are now not going to remodel the bathroom.  After that, we headed downtown to FEZ.  We had a fabulous dinner, then on the way home, stopped at Redbox to rent some movies.  I asked Dennis when we got old.  It's not even 8 and we're in for the night.  We're now kicking back, having a beer and watching the movie Fast and Furious.

Tomorrow, Patrick's helping us return the vanity to CostCo with his truck, then Lisa and I are going back to IKEA to return the lights we got for the bathroom that don't fit/work and a sliding tray she bought.  Then, we should be all done returning stuff. 

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.  Very hot here in Phoenix.  We are hoping the cool weather comes back very soon!  Take care!!

One Year Anniversary

It's hard to believe that a year has gone by already. It was 8/24/08 when, in the parking lot of JoAnne Fabrics, we became parents of Drama and Brother Boy. Sounds so seedy, I know. But that's how it went down. And our lives haven't been the same since.

They are the center of our lives. They have so much love to give, and expect so little in return. Whoever would have thought WE would have dogs! We hit the lottery with these two. We are so lucky to have them in our lives. Everyone should be so fortunate. Take care.

Post Op Update

It's Thursday morning and I'm awake. Barely. Vicodin kicked my butt this morning when I took it at 5:30. It is helping with the pain, though.

My knee surgery went well yesterday. They took me back about 9 and I woke up at 10:55. They immediately got me up and kicked me out. Dennis pulled the car around and we went to Walgreen's to drop off my prescription. He then took me to Arby's for brunch. After picking up the medicine, we went home. It's the funniest thing, the boys HATE crutches! The instant I start using them, they both start barking like maniacs. I tried to use the cane instead, with similar results. It's curious what must have happened to them before we adopted them to make them bark insanely at crutches or a cane!

I slept in the bed last night, and the boys were pretty good. I was up a couple of times to go to the bathroom and refresh my medication. Both times, they protectively followed me to the bathroom to make sure I was alright. They were nice enough to wake me up at the usual 5:30. Dennis let them out and I immediately sat down and fell asleep after taking the Vicodin. That brings us to now. Thank you all for your well wishes, thoughts and prayers.

Dennis' birthday was last weekend on 8/14. We went camping at Clint's Well with 10 friends in their RVs. We arrived Thursday to enjoy a 3 day weekend. It was FANTASTIC! The weather was great, the company was awesome and the Karaoke.....well, it was fun, too! So much great food, good liquor and fun times. It was amazing!

This weekend is recovery time so that I can get back to the office on Monday. It's also the 1 year anniversary of us adopting Drama and Brother Boy, formerly known as Bubba. They are such loyal and loving companions!! Thanks again for the well wishes for recovery. Have a great week and weekend!!

Pictures: doggies on the back of the sofa; Forest Road 751 near Blue Ridge Reservoir.

Check out my updated Picasa Album from our buggy ride on 8/15/09!!

New adventure

I'm excited to inform everyone that I've recently became a freelance writer for The Examiner as a Phoenix RV Lifestyle Examiner. I'll write 3-4 articles a week about my RV experiences, news, advice, etc. and post them to the web site. I'd be really grateful and honored if you would bookmark my site, visit often, and subscribe to my e-mail. This is a new opportunity for me to share my passion for RV'ing with others. Below is the URL. Thank you so much for your support!!!

http://www.examiner.com/x-16754-Phoenix-RV-Lifestyle-Examiner

It's been an interesting week already. Brother Boy spent Thursday at the vet. He woke up and started vomiting all over the place. Being the nervous mother that I am, I called the vet when I got to work and they were able to get him right in, so I went home to pick him up and take him in. Of course, Drama went along for the ride. They wanted to do some tests which would take a couple of hours, so I left him there and went home to work. About 12:30, they called to let me know he was ready to go home. I went to get him and after speaking to the doctor, the tests didn't turn up anything other than "he had a tummy ache". It was comforting to know there wasn't something serious wrong with him. Poor baby!

Thursday afternoon, I went to my doctor to get my left knee checked out. She referred me to an ortho and ordered x-rays. I immediately went to get the x-rays done, and on the way home, scheduled the ortho appointment for Thursday the 16th. More to come, I'm sure!

Today's Friday and it's hot as hell here - literally! We'll be spending the weekend inside and in the pool. I hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend. I'll write more later!

Sunday update

It's Sunday morning after another weekend at home. Sometimes its nice to not travel, but to just stay home and not have to do anything - unless we want to.

Dennis and I carpooled every day this week except for Wednesday morning. That made for long days since he is working overtime. We were there before 7 and stayed until 4:30 or 4:45. Friday we left at 3:30 which was very nice!

Wednesday I took the motor home to Payless to have the jacks fixed. They broke down after we got home from Flagstaff a few weeks ago. We are really hoping to get it back by Wednesday so that we can go out of town Thursday.

Friday we went to PF Chang's with Ron & Marilyn. We then stopped by Cold Stone for some ice cream to go, then came back to our house for some ice cream and wine. It was a fairly early night, we were in bed by 10:30. Saturday, the dogs woke us up at 5:30. We got dressed and went down to Ron & Marilyn's because they were having a garage sale. We bought some stuff and helped drive in some traffic for them by putting our neon green signs out at strategic places. We had a new alarm installed Saturday morning - ADT didn't want to make it worthwhile for us to become their customers again, so we signed up with American Alarm/Monitronics. We got a new keypad with cell phone communication to the monitoring station and got all new batteries in our sensors. The monitoring fee is about the same as with ADT. It's ADT's loss.

After a couple of naps and lots of relaxation, Lyn and Dan came down and we drank some wine, had some appetizers, and then had dinner. We watched The House Bunny - which was very funny - and then they left. It was a very nice evening.

Today the dogs let us sleep in until 5:45. They've both been very emotionally and affectionately needy this morning. I think it's because they are cold. They're 10 pounds, and with the a/c and ceiling fan going, it gets cold for them at 12" off the floor. We kicked them out of the bed this week - by setting up a bed for them on the recliner that we took to the bedroom from the family room. Drama does a great job staying in the chair but Brother Boy gets out of the chair several times a night and jumps on our bed. And several times a night, we get up and put him back in the chair. It is nice to sleep without worrying about rolling over onto one of them. But they don't like it very much!

We've also taken to giving them free reign of the bedroom and bathroom when we go to work. We did it 3 days this week and they did great. They are less energetic when we get home because they romped around all day, and they entertain each other. Thursday they got some bar soap out of the bathtub and chewed on it. Friday, they found a wooden ball that was somewhere in the bedroom and chewed it up. Now we know we need to leave some of their chew toys in the room with them to keep them occupied. They're such good boys!

This week is a short week. We are off Friday and - assuming we get the motor home back - leaving early Thursday to head to Mingus Mountain. We're really looking forward to taking the dogs camping in the forest with little/no electricity. It should be fun!

We hope everyone has a great week and an enjoyable and thankful Independence Day holiday. We should never forget the freedoms we have or what has been sacrificed in order to guarantee them for us! Also enjoy the picture of Drama sleeping on his back between the cushions on the couch.

Wednesday morning

It's morning 5 without Dennis here. The dogs have been very needy because they miss him and require all of their affection from me. Every little noise, they jump up and run to the front door to see if it's him. Poor babies! Brother Boy was just at the front door whining. They sure do miss him!

I'm battling a cold this week. It started Sunday after coming home from Ray & Mary's. Not sure if it was from the airplane ride on Wednesday or if it was the girls/germ factories at their house on Saturday. Either way, it stinks. I hate having a cold! I do feel a little better today, although now the hacking cough is starting. I sure hope I get over it before Dennis comes home Sunday and that he doesn't bring some bug home from Ohio!

Monday after work, the dogs and I went to run some errands. We had to ship something to my parents from the UPS store, then I ran into Fry's to get some groceries. After that it was off to CostCo so I could order a birthday cake from one of my leaders. I picked up a couple of things while I was there. Tuesday I had training downtown in the afternoon and it was nearly 6pm by the time I got home. The dogs had to spend 10 hours in their crate that day, but they did just fine. Last night was American Idol night - it was a little lame. I hope its better tonight.

More to come later. I would encourage you to sign up for Facebook and send me a friend request. Have a great Wednesday!!

Tuesday morning

Good morning! Just a quick note to start the day. I'm still keeping up with my workout routine. Hit the Ellipse both yesterday and today. Now I need to master healthy eating.

I got my WD Passport Elite (hard drive) set up and all my files copied to it yesterday. It was pretty easy, although I did have to make a call to my brother for some advice on how to do it. I finally got it to work. Yeah!

I had 3 eggs left this morning, so I made one for the boys. After I ate my breakfast and the egg I made for them was cooled, I put it on my paper plate and gave it to them. I forgot about them for a while and then I noticed Brother Boy pushing the plate into the family room. When I picked it up, he had literally licked through the plate! There was a hole in it and he was getting extra fiber from the paper! Silly doggy! He's been very needy and affectionate lately. And I'm happy to ablige him. How can I resist those eyes?

I worked at home yesterday and got my self-assessment completed and submitted to my manager. Now I have the fun task of writing the evaluations of the 5 people who report directly to me, and review/give feedback/approve the evaluations of the 43 people who report to them! Let the games begin!

Have a great Tuesday! Here's a picture of the dogs sleeping yesterday while I worked.

It's finally Friday!

I thought this week would never end! It sucked working 5 straight days after having 12 days off! But I made it through. I was back on the ellipse today for my 20 minutes of heavy breathing. It's a great way to start the day!

Last night, Christmas started to make its way back into the boxes and bins. We got quite a lot done (Dennis did most of it). We got the tree down (100 ornaments later) and put in its box. The village is put away and everything is off the top of the entertainment center. My goal is to get it finished this weekend to get our house back!

We put the boys outside last night as Brother Boy was acting like he needed to go out. After a while, I tried to get them to come in. They were chasing each other around the pool. Let me rephrase that. Brother Boy was chasing Drama around the pool. He's fast for a little dude! Brother Boy never did catch him. Drama's SMART, too. I must have watched them go around 8 or 9 times. It was amusing, despite the fact that they were ignoring my calls to come inside. Then all of the sudden, the expected happened - Drama fell or was pushed (not sure which) into the pool. Fortunately it was on the side closest to the patio door. I ran out to him and he was struggling. The water is very cold and it was dark. He freaked out. I'm SO glad I was watching all of this and was able to run to his rescue. There's no telling what would have happened. I then had to give him a bath because our pool water is a little stinky. Poor thing! Both him and his brother were upset for the rest of the night.

We are spending the weekend at home. We may go down to IKEA to their winter sale. We don't need much but definitely need some new slippers! Other than that, it'll be Christmas removal and stowage and maybe some wine. I hope everyone has a fabulous Friday and an awesome weekend!

Sure Happy Its Thursday

I skipped the workout today, I got wrapped up in playing with the Verizon card and my work computer. I was delighted to learn that I can use the Verizon card on my work computer and access all of the same things I can access with my wired or wireless connection.

The dogs are fighting like, well, dogs. They sound so vicious when they do that but I know it's all in brotherly love. Plus it burns some of their energy so they can calmly go into the crate when it's time for me to leave. They're currently fighting over the rope/rubber chew toy that we bought them at CVS Pharmacy in Cottonwood last weekend. I knew we should have bought 2 of them!!

I'm hoping that the bundle of motivation that I asked for from Santa shows up at work today. What I'd really like is a job opportunity that lets me work from home so that I can take off in the motor home. I sure hope this phase passes soon! I know it will, it always does.

In case you were wondering, Drama prevailed in the fight for the rope/rubber chew toy. I think Brother Boy gave up and is looking for one of the other chew toys that they have around the house. They are so neglected and spoiled. :-)