best dog ever

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Everybody has a best dog ever but whatever. I can say though with much certainty that everyone who has met our girl has been won over. She has a pocket full of tricks that would impress even the most stuffy cat-lover.

She is getting up there in age and we think she just had a stroke so the side of her face looks a bit like her Madame Tussaud’s wax replica stood a little too close to an open flame. But the vet assures us strokes in dogs aren’t as damaging as in people and she’ll firm back up over time.

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A true Lab, she has had an exciting life of boating, beaching and family fun. We invested in a camper specifically so we cold drag our furbabies everywhere with us. It’s really the perfect solution. 6-11-06 019 7-25-10 256 9-16-10 185 2008 073

Her only flaw is her bottomless pit. She has eaten herself into lots of trouble in her lifetime. Including eating greasy rocks from under the grill, she ate a blanket that required surgical removal of her intestines for manual “milking” that was awesome, sticks, loaves of bread, full freshly baked cakes, lots of paper products, some plastic products, bones, grass, fake indoor plants, cat litter excessively, lots of diapers, and a wide assortment of wild and domestic feces.2009 548 Fishing 7-04-05 003 Fishing 7-04-05 010 IMG_0599 IMG_0913 IMG_0922 IMG_0932 IMG_1100

The best human pillow ever.

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Our best dog ever.

exasperation

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“Mommy, why are you making that face?” Because I am losing my marbles.

Mostly, I try to shake the small stuff, like my need for order, cleanliness, arriving on time for once – anywhere, putting on makeup, brushing my hair, ok – just general personal hygiene, getting out of my pajamas, making my children wear clothes, getting the dogs outside before they can’t hold it anymore, getting my kids to the toilet before they can’t hold it anymore, getting to the toilet before I can’t – ok this just got weird.

Anyway, my point is everywhere I look stuff just isn’t right and I feel like I have really grown as a person because I resort to taking pictures instead of totally flipping my shit. It doesn’t do any good anymore and if the baby craps on the floor once in a while because she won’t wear pants then I guess that’s what steam cleaners are for, right? Um, BTW Bissell is much stronger than Rug doctor in my personal experience and I have A LOT of experience.

IMG_1966  figure 1. using all my clean dishtowels as a bridge across the floor covered in dog hair.

IMG_1970 my flock enjoying individual dirt baths in my garden. bye bye new seeds I just planted. We will clearly not be harvesting any spinach or broccoli.

IMG_1967 this is just a simple picture of my cat scaring about 5 years off my life when I got down on all fours to reach a ball that rolled under the bed. I look up to this nose right in my face. Not even sure why it scared me so bad.

#TBT

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I heard a commercial on the radio yesterday that jogged a highly repressed memory of something that I can honestly tag as one of my more embarrassing moments. So, in honor of TBT (throw back Thursday) I’m going to dish on this awkward little on-going calamity I had with a former boss.

When I was pregnant with W I got assigned to help roll out this great big state project. The project manager assigned for this deal was a Californian who came to Baltimore a couple times a week. He was pretty chill, youngish, healthy-granola style and we meshed ok. You guys know what I mean by that, right? Example he stayed in a hotel in the Inner Harbor and actually went jogging around the Harbor at night. Like HELLO, do you have a death wish? Who goes running around the Inner Harbor at night? Well, maybe he was a super-fast runner and knew he could out run a stab attempt?? I digress…

So, one fine day when we were talking shop he randomly asked me where some good topless bars were. Though odd, I took it in stride and offered the names of some locations my brother had frequented and I knew were popular with C’s friends. I have some delusions of grandeur when it comes to Cali so I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I always hear Cali is very liberal and though I probably don’t know exactly what that means – who knows, maybe they don’t have sexual harassment and stuff out there seeing as how everyone is famous and awesomely tan? Plus, being like 8 months pregnant I knew this wasn’t a come-on he just wanted to know where he could see some boobs. He was obviously lonely.

Fast forward a couple weeks later and I am in a meeting in his office running through some project data. In walks the administrator (my boss’s boss’s boss – like high up there boss man) we say our hello’s and he goes right into talking topless bars with Cali transplant project manager. Interesting. We are friendly, he once gave me a holiday mix tape (he gave lots of people holiday mix tapes but I felt cool to be on the short list) but this was a new level of work friendship. Nor did I realize how conversational and normal it was to eat dinner with co-workers at topless bars. Anyway, that’s being a pregnant girl in a man’s world, right? The Administrator starts rambling about how amazing the food is at this one specific location, though small portions, and complaining it was so dark he couldn’t see what he was eating. Well duh it’s dark, who wants to see cellulite right? They turn to me and ask my opinion about Croquetas, jerked from my musings on cellulite I stutter and fumble and somehow Nightshift maybe came out of my mouth, I can’t recall the specifics the aftermath was so humiliating. The administrator gives me a weird look and bids us farewell and exits quickly stage left. Cali project manager also has a weird face and asks what Nightshift is. The heat that radiated off my face must have sealed my fate before the dubious explanation of Nightshifts endeavors because Cali project manager was laughing like a Hyena on crack. WTF was going on.

They say you learn something new every day. That specific day I learned about Tapas. Tapas – a wide variety of appetizers, or snacks. Which apparently may be eaten in dimly lit facilities not to be confused with Topless Bars. Luckily Cali project manager did not take my suggestions to patronize any of the facilities I suggested. Lesson Learned.

strep

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Apparently strep throat is spreading like wild fire in Jacksonville, FL and in my house.

Here’s a link in case you have family and want to tell them to stay indoors for fear of the “strep”.

http://www.news4jax.com/health/whats-going-around/strep-throat-is-still-going-around/31983248

I haven’t had strep in years, like many many years. Probably since I was in school and I don’t remember it being this awful. The worst part is my kids had it first so while they were crying and writhing in agony I was simply pumping them full of fluids and medication, oblivious to the fiery licks of pain they were enduring in their tiny little throats. Now I am suffering the wrath of strep and literally am incapacitated. It’s like my throat is melting from the inside out and I am sucking cough drops and drinking hot tea like a frenzied animal.

Screw you strep throat. I hate you.

And C is so scared. He knows he’s on Strep’s hit list. He went out and bought 3 cans of Lysol and has been dousing the house frequently. Like that will save his soul. The odds are against him, I hate to say it. Although I’m rooting for him. Hopefully he makes it out alive, he is the worst patient. He won’t even sit next to me on the couch. Maybe I will at least lose some weight out of this torture because that’s what it is. Total Effing Torture. If I had enemies I would cough on them. It’s that bad.

It started out in such an odd manor too. O came home from school complaining that her teacher gave her hot soup that burned her throat. I know, sad right? But I thought it was odd she burned her throat and not her mouth so we asked if her mouth was ok and she said it was fine. Sign #1. doom.

Then in the middle of the night O woke up screaming in terror shriveling away from both C and I – in utter terror! It was awful. She was so hot she was hallucinating – she said we had masks on us and she didn’t know it was us. She was totally freaking me out. Sign #2. gloom.

It was all downhill from there, more fever, loss of taste of food, more fever, W then started with the fevers so we ended up going to Urgent Care Sunday because that’s a great time to go. Positive strep tests led to antibiotics, popsicles and excessive amounts of chicken soup. Or actually excessive popsicles and no chicken soup but I try to get them to eat healthy. Half way through the week cold symptoms started and the girls ended up with viruses on top of the strep. Because I can handle all that is dished out to me. (that’s what I keep telling myself at least)

I literally wanted to go back to work that’s how bad it was. Interrupted sleep, crying, fevers, diarrhea – it was like a week of a sickness hell bender.

By Thursday both girls were finally well enough to attend school the next day, Friday. Yet by some act of mother freaking nature it snowed so I got stuck in the house one more day. It was the ultimate test to my sanity.

I ended up having a wonderful sickness free weekend though. Happy children, productive activities – even went to NY Sunday for a fabulous Network workshop for the CW before I was struck down by the hand of the strep devil. Now I sit here typing in front of a heater fantasizing about chicken broth, Afrin and my heating pad.

oops.

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I just got in trouble. Luckily no harm, no foul.

Sometimes though, I just can’t help myself. When I see certain things, like figure 1. below, I just have to capture the moment. Then, whenever I am feeling blue, or want to blackmail C, I just open up the folder on my computer that says “C” and speculate how someone can be so freaking crazy.

IMG_3491  Figure 1.

That’s a dog toy on the floor. I realize that it could potentially look like some X rated paraphernalia but I swear it’s not.

Anyway, on to the story. C installed surveillance cameras at his place of business for security purposes. It was new and exciting and we would watch them at night from our ipad at home. That got old fast though because it was pretty boring – I mean it was nighttime so it was dark and nobody was robbing the place. So C called me while at work and said “check the cameras, do they even work?” SOOOO.

Maybe you know where I am going with this? Maybe not…

I pop open the app and sure enough screens start uploading and there is a naked man walking around C’s workshop. I won’t say the name of this man but he was recognizable. Then I see it, the “camera” option on the screen and snap a pic. C starts asking if I see anything, and I say “Nope, cameras aren’t working”

Naked man continues to wander, doing some high leg stretches and some interesting gymnastics type moves. I keep snapping pictures with absolutely no clue where these photos are going…

Until today. When the naked mans mother used the ipad to take photos of a customers lawn. Oooopsy!

The funny part is she doesn’t know who naked man is either. There are a few potential candidates in the family circle of possibilities and all suspects are equally plausibly guilty for such behavior – even at said location no less.

dammit

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As a mother I try to avoid profanity as much as possible so in moments of utter frustration I tend to huff really loud similar to an animal giving birth.

something like: uggggghhhhhhhhhHHHHHH in various tones and pitches.

However, O just informed me “when something goes wrong, I need to yell DAMMIT really loud“.

Sounds legit.

shadow box

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I was reading this blog a while back I found on Pinterest (shocker) and this lady had made these shadow boxes for her kids that were super freaking cute. Like so cute I went to Michael’s and bought a bunch of miscellaneous crap without the slightest plan, rhyme or reason. Just a wild hair. That is the story of my life, I will randomly see something and become so inspired that I spend every waking hour obsessing over it until I get it out of my system. It’s like these little spastic fits of creativity and motivation in between long spans of boredom and laziness.

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Okay – I am finally back. You guys don’t know this but I just got sucked into the black hole of Pinterest. I went to go find the image above because it was such a perfect and accurate representation of how my stupid brain works. Anyway I started reading all the other hilarious quotes I’ve posted and started laughing thinking I could totally make a blog post about funny quotes – oh snap, wait I am working on a blog post right now, that’s right I logged in here for a reason, back on track. Boom.

Anywho, back to the boxes… I had to look through my pictures and pick out a theme. I picked pink for O because everything I purchased and received for my first girl was pink.

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Look at that tiny little thing. I don’t remember anything about the hospital stay from my first child. I was on so many drugs and tranquilizers it was all a blur so it’s nice to see pictures of what actually happened. Apparently my parents visited.   baby 12-23-10 264 Look how sexy my ma is. She’s a G-MILF.

baby 12-23-10 329 Christmas Day, bringing the new baby home. We stopped to pick up our furbabies at C’s parents house.

oakley 2 oakley 3 oakley 5 Dude. Look at this kid. Made for the camera.

IMG_2387 - Copy O’s Box. Aunt Lauren hand made that hat for her and she wore it a lot too because her head was like 90th percentile (trust me on this it felt that way coming out) and this hat stretched real nice. I wrapped that letter O with yarn too for a splash of texture. I also glued all the stuff in there with a glue gun. The blog I read said some people tacked their stuff in there so it didn’t get ruined but her perspective was it was now art and wasn’t going to be wore again. I agreed and glued my shit in there too.

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W was different. I didn’t do all pink with her from the beginning but I did do a lot of animal print.

IMG_2873 Us bringing this small fry home. Obviously I was eating tacos and taking drugs because I see wraps on the table and the medicine cabinet is open in the background.

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My brother took these adorable pictures of the girls. So sweet.

phone 051 Look at that little face. Almost makes me want another one…

Ha just kidding it doesn’t.

IMG_2388 Her little box is pink too but a bit more funky. O was always classic, W seems a bit more brave and wild. Second child thing, self fulfilling prophecy – guess I will never know.