Since we got our digital camera for graduation last May, several pictures have been taken of the dogs. However, I just never got around to getting them posted on the site. So, for everyone who wanted to see what they look like, here is Dante:
Here is Rosie:
Finally, I decided to throw in a picture of my sister, her husband, and my niece, Lola:
Well, the master bedroom is finally finished. I started work on the project right around the end of December and here it is, late January, when I am finishing up. I originally estimated that it would take me four days to finish — it took more like nine, plus a few nights after work. It turns out that I am not so good at estimating the time it will take to complete a project like this. However, I am pleased with the way the room turned out.
As promised, here is a before picture of the room:
Here are a few final shots:
You can see other photos of the renovation here.
I finally finished reading Freakonomics during lunch today. Of course, I could have finished it Monday if I had realized that the epilogue, the only part I had yet to read, was three pages long. Freakonomics is about applying economic theory to everyday life. While the book was interesting to read, it did not have a lot of meat to it. It told some interesting stories and provided several conjectures; however, it completely glossed over how the Levitt came to his conclusions. I would recommend it for some light reading but if you are looking for something with a little oomph to it, you might want to try elsewhere.
Despite my best efforts, the bedroom remodelling is still going on. Here is the breakdown of the tasks:
I am finally in the home stretch now. My goal is finish with the caulking and painting by the end of Saturday night. That way, I can finish up Sunday morning with the curtains and moving the furniture back in place and, after three and a half weeks, we can finally move back into our bedroom.
It sounds like Jon had an interesting time getting ready with said neurotic puppy basically attached to his leg…and when we say attached to a leg, we literally mean it. If she could physically sit on our foot and wrap her little paws around our leg like some screaming 3-year old throwing a tantrum, she would totally do it! Anyway, let me set the scene for those of you who are not fortunate enough to have a neurotic puppy in your life.
Friday morning, 5:30 am:
Snobbers: Mom’s alarm goes off, she’s not moving fast enough, maybe she needs help. I’ll get right up in her face, breath on her and paw the bed. Maybe that will get her moving. Yep, that worked!
5:35 am:
Snobbers: Mom finally fed us and now I want to go outside, hurry up mom.
5:45 am:
Mom gets tired of waiting to see if they want back in. Goes and gets in the shower.
6:00 am:
Out of the shower and putting on her makeup, no noise from the dogs yet. Is this good or bad?
6:15 am:
Done with makeup. Time to let the dogs in and eat breakfast. During breakfast, watch the news and see massive thunderstorm coming our way. Time to hit madison, 6:50 am. Look down at dog who is already beginning to huddle under my feet that are propped up on the coffee table. Other puppy is completely fine at this point.
6:30 am:
Wake up husband for morning workout. Try not to step on either puppy as I’m entering an extremely dark room since the sun is not up. They tried to help wake up sleeping husband. Not a good idea!
6:35 am:
It starts raining. Of course, the Gutless Wonder decides now is a great time to go outside and look around. Decide to go ahead and take out the other puppy as well. However, said puppy will only go outside if Mom goes too. Apparently, girls always go to the bathroom in herds, no matter the species. Huge pile of leaves blows in through the open door as the dogs are fighting each other to see who can get in first. Crap, now I have a huge pile of leaves in the house. Can’t leave them, otherwise there will be thousands of leaf bits scattered around the house by the time I get home from work. Pick up all 6 million leaves.
6:40 am:
Brush teeth and start to dry hair. Neurotic puppy is now beginning to get warmed up. The panting begins.
6:55 am:
Through with hair, time to get dressed. Hear strange noise as I am debating on what to wear. Suddenly, neurotic puppy appears in bedroom. How did she get past the box? Oh, she moved it out of the way! Smart puppy. Puppy attachment now in place.
7:00 am:
Wow, putting on pants, socks, and shoes is difficult with puppy attachment in place. Must remember to remove it first next time. Meanwhile, other puppy is roaming our semi-finished bedroom eating whatever random wood pieces are on the floor. I hope he gets a splinter. Maybe that will teach him. Oops, apparently not!
7:05 am:
Husband appears for his shower. Neurotic puppy proceeds to run into our bathroom and refuse to come out. In order to get her out, we all must leave the room, I have to grab her, and Jon runs to the bathroom and shuts the door. She is now pawing and scratching at the door. She is determined to get in there.
7:10 am:
Finished dressing and would like to kiss husband good-bye. Oh wait the dog, shut her up in the hall bathroom just so I can get into mine and talk to Jon. Decision is made to dope the dog. Okay, I’ll do it and then leave. Let dog out of bathroom and proceed to kitchen for peanut butter and benadryl.
7:15 am:
Doping this stupid dog is impossible. She is now huddling at the door leading into the garage refusing to take her pill that is wrapped in peanut butter. In the background:
The Gutless Wonder: Ooooh, peanut butter. I smell peanut butter. Gimme some peanut butter mommy! Please, please, please! Peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…mommy, I’ll take whatever you’re ginving to her. PEANUT BUTTER!!! (all the time, he is dancing around trying to be cute so that he can have some stupid peanut butter!)
Meanwhile, trying to get a neurotic dog to take a peanut butter-covered pill is extremely difficult seeing as the pill is now very sticky and she has lots of hair. thus, I pick the pill up off the floor once, pull it out of her face twice, and then somehow manage to get it stuck somewhere out of sight, thinking she has actually swallowed the dang thing.
The Gutless Wonder: Peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…PEANUT BUTTER!!!
Next pill. In the process of prying her jaws open, shoving my finger as far as I can get it into her mouth, then wiping my finger along her tongue in order to get the pill into her mouth, and holding her mouth shut until she swallows, I find the first pill. Is this what kids are like?!
The Gutless Wonder: Peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…PEANUT BUTTER!!!
Repeat process with original pill.
The Gutless Wonder: Peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…peanut butter…PEANUT BUTTER!!!
Gave the other dog some dang peanut butter!
7:20 am:
Dog is now doped but still huddling by the door I need to go out of. Start trying to coax her out. Nope, not gonna work.
At this point, sanity leaves me and I start yelling and trying to reason with the dog….the dog! They don’t understand reasoning, what am I doing.
7:21 am:
I finally lose it and am now yelling at poor neurotic puppy. Suddenly, I hear whistling. Husband is out of the shower and here to save the day! He rounds the corner with hair dripping and a towel around his waist. He must have heard my yelling. Wow, does my voice really carry that far?
Husband goes to the door and very sweetly coaxes her, half drags her out of the way so that I can leave. Other puppy now decides he wants her spot and tries to follow me out. I manage to get the door shut.
7:25 am:
Poor husband is left to fend for himself as I am pulling out into the driveway. A few minutes later, immense guilt sets in because I was yelling at my poor neurotic puppy who cannot help but be who she is, a neurotic puppy. It’s not her fault that she’s this way. How could I have yelled at her. I am going to be a horrible mom. I am unfit to have children if I cannot even handle one rough morning with a neurotic puppy.
7:45 am:
Arrive for work, still feeling guilty. Thought of a way to make it up to her, I’ll give her a big treat and some TLC when I get home. Said puppy will probably be surrounded in a puddle of drool (think Odie). Clean up mess and go on with life.
There are several reasons why having a neurotic dog during a thunderstorm can be bad:
Over on Presentation Zen this morning, there is a post on the high points of Steve Job’s keynote presentation. While I agree with the points that the author makes, the thing that blew me away was the picture in point three. It is a capture of a slide from the presentation talking about the new features in Apple’s Keynote presentation software. It highlights the new image reflection feature that in Keynote that is just plain cool.
With the renovations to our room still unfinished, the dog crates are collapsed and under our bed to keep them out of the way. Now, the lack of accessible crates posed a bit of a problem on Tuesday morning when Ashley and I had to return to work. Since our room is a mess and crowded, I did not want to set the crates back up in there, nor did I want to junk up the living room with them. Our solution was to let the dogs run free in the house during the workday.
This was a pretty big milestone in puppy development. We had left the dogs out on their own at night in the past when we had gone out; however, that has always been a much shorter amount of time than a normal workday. Would the Rosie and Dante be able to control themselves for ten hours (7:30 – 5:30) straight? So far, everything has worked out ok. Over the past four days, the dogs have had the run of the house and everything is still intact with no puddles or messes. As a plus, since I normally get home first, I get the traditional excited puppy dance from the two of them when I walk in the door. We will likely continue to leave them out during the day even after I get the room finished since they are being so good.
With today being the start of the New Year, everyone is making resolutions for he wants to do accomplish in the course of the year. Most of these resolutions fall by the wayside. Typically, I do not make New Year’s Resolutions for just that reason; when I have tried in the past, I generally did not succeed and basically forgot about them by February or March. I believe that most people fail in their resolutions because they tend to make unrealistic claims about what they can actually do. So, I have decided to set a few reasonable goals for myself:
Here’s hoping that I actually accomplish these over the year.
