Trick or treat its a new week

It's Monday, an unremarkable Monday, but thought I would write anyway.

Not much new on the home front. Big C is around for a little while now, work has been keeping him on the staying in hotels circuit the last bit and he's gone all next week again. Poor guy, I definitely do not envy him. 

Hotel stays for vacations or periodically when needed are fine, but when you spend nearly as many days in a hotel as you do in your own bed, I'm thinking it becomes tiresome.

We had our first snowflakes over the weekend. They didn't last long and they were pretty wet, but it was snow for sure. That means winter is around the corner.

Yes, it may take another month before we get snow that actually sticks around for a day or so, but it's fast approaching.

We got another video of our soon to be fur kid yesterday. I guess it was a video of the whole litter, eyes now open, starting to walk etc… Cuteness overflowing let me tell you. Miss K watched the video 3 times, she just can't wait until our pup comes home.

On the flip side, there were more tears for my mudpuppy today. She's been gone nearly 5 months and some days the wound is still so fresh of losing her.

A piss off almost, a dog that was otherwise healthy save for a few seasonal allergies taken from us. 75 pounds of pure muscle and athleticism and some wiring didn't work in her brain that stripped us of more years with her. Maddening that a dog that healthy couldn't have spent more time in our lives.

Lots of tears still to come, and I know having the new pup will both help and hurt all at the same time.

Big C put his back out yesterday. He's a big time hurting unit. You know how when your back hurts everything hurts and you just become cranky?? That describes him to a T right now.

He could have asked for help to push what he was pushing and that might have stopped it, but who really knows? Maybe some magic from the chiropractor will make things better.

Halloween is this week. Yay. Not.

I don't like Halloween. I like dressing up, some of the costumes people come up with are cool, but I just don't care for it.

It seems its becoming another big commercial racket and that bugs me.

It's one night, Miss K will visit her half dozen houses and some home and scarf a bunch of candy and that will be that I hope. 

It's supposed to rain too, which might make some of the less die hard trick or treaters not show up.

I could do without the kids who are old enough to drive themselves around, the ones who don't have any manners, the ones who put on a hockey jersey and call it a costume, the parents who are collecting for a "sick kid" at home, the ones that are too old, the ones that are too young etc…

I guess that pretty much leaves the princesses and spidermans that get wheeled around in a wagon by their parents. They're the few that are polite and cute.

Enjoy your Halloween festivities, whether thats trick or treating, parties or sitting in the house with the lights off…til next time

Can you have too many puppies?

How many dogs is too many? 

We have good friends who have 9. Yes nine dogs. They live on a rural property so there's no by-laws limiting the number of pets. But the house is small and all the dogs are in the house for the most part. There is a designated dog room, but for the majority of the time they have free reign of the house.

And its a good thing, their house does not smell of dog, their furniture is not chewed up, their floors are spotless because no crumb of food ever stays for too long.

They even have 2 cats. I'm not talking little dogs either, each and every one is either a labrador or golden retriever.

It works for them, but could it work for us?

Yes, I fear that we may become a multi-dog household. Not 9 of them, but perhaps 2.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we've spoken for and put a deposit down on a puppy who will be coming home in about 6 weeks.

So that is good, but in the last week we've had 2 inquiries about taking other dogs that people are needing to get rid of.

One is a 6 month female black lab that someone was looking to use for a show dog, but the adult teeth didn't come in quite right and that is out for the dog by the owner.

Leery on this one, would love to have a pup that is out of the real puppy stage, but at the same time if it was bred for show, will it be good for retrieving? The price is right, free, but can't let my big sympathetic heart get the best of me on this one.

The other is a 18 month old that has been with a pro trainer since birth. Good bloodlines, good training history and so on make this a more attractive option.

The dog isn't quite living up to the standards and/or timeline that the pro had set out for her. She's a good dog, but with so many others to train you have to leave the weaker ones behind. Kind of like a sports team, you can only keep so many and the ones that don't make the grade have to find another place to play when they're cut.

The price for a dog like this is steep even with a less than stellar performance record. Our beloved mudpuppy came to our home under similar circumstances, a great dog, but didn't fit in with the plan/team she was on. But she was free under the condition that we get her spayed right away.

We'd already said that we could not afford the asking price as it was over 2000 bucks. But there was an email last night saying that there was some negotiating room on price and how did we feel about that??

Ahhhhrrrggghhh, I don't know…I'm not too sure about the puppy coming in 6 weeks, let alone having  a more mature dog in the house.

It would be good in a lot of ways. There's advantages to having 2 dogs for sure. A more mature dog to show the other one good habits, 2 for hunting, 2 for training, one could rest while the other is running, hunting. More to love, more of everything, including dog hair!! Mostly, one could entertain the other and that would be helpful at the puppy stage.

It could be bad in lots of ways. With the older dogs, you have no idea what sort of issues you could be dealing with. There is double the cost in all areas, double the trouble basically.

We'll have to think long and hard about whether we would even consider having two dogs right now. 

Have to think of Miss K, what is it going to do to her if we did decide to bring 2 into the house and then had to get rid of one because it wasn't working out?? Plus how might an older dog relate to her? Have they even been around kids or would that be a safety issue??

Adding to the thought process is the real possibility the breeder of the puppy we are getting may very well offer us an attractive deal on 2 puppies.

The mom had a litter of 12. Yes 12 damn puppies. I think he had about 6 spoken for before she had them, but now he's got double that number to get rid of…yikes

Well wouldn't that be a whole other kettle of fish? Or barrel of puppies if you will. We're not sure about having one puppy, how would we deal with 2??

Could be double the fun and definitely double the trouble.

For the long time we wondered if we'd ever get a replacement for our little girl who put such big paw prints on our hearts, and now we've got the little buggers knocking down our door.

In some ways I hope we just end up with one for the time being, but another part of me says fill the house up with any that want to come our way.

Like they say, when it rains…it generally pours..whatever happens I know I'm going to have to get more Swiffers for the floors!!

Til next time...

Like a steel trap

Do you kids ever frighten you?

I don't mean hiding in their room and jumping out of the closet, I mean scaring you with what they know and remember?

Miss K has a mind like a steel trap. The information goes in, and does not come out. She files it somewhere in there for recollection at a moments notice.

Frightening on its own level.

Take this week for example. After a trip to the clinic we find out that the poor kid has an ear infection. Mild, but still some antibiotics are needed to make sure it goes away.

She will complain for 3 damn days about a hangnail she had 2 weeks ago, but just mentions in passing from time to time that her ears are sore, but that's another story.

After Miss K woke up in the wee hours of the morning the other day. 5:20 to be exact. She was complaining rather profusely now that inside her ear hurt so we told her that we'd be going to the clinic later in the day so they could check things out.

We have been to this clinic exactly once in her life. Our family doctor retired 6 months ago so we had to make the switch to a nurse practitioner clinic.

We did  a small tour and meet and greet one evening in March and that is the last we've ever been there with Miss K. (I'm not complaining, she's a healthy kid)

Upon hearing the news we'd be going to the doctor. She asked if we'd be in the fire truck room, because that is the one she'd like to be in.

I got a blank stare on my face and said I didn't know. I honestly was thinking that she'd seen something on TV about kids going to the doctor or hospital and they'd been in a room like that.

She asked me then what the other room at the clinic was because she couldn't remember and that's when the light bulb finally went on in my head.

The clinic has 2 rooms geared for kids, one with a fire engine bed and one with a train bed.

Dear God, how did she even think of that?? The things that get imprinted on those young minds blow me away.

I guess she pulled the almost identical conversation with Big C later in the day when he picked her up from the sitter. He said it took a little longer for him to clue in, but he had the same reaction. How in the hell does she come up with this stuff?

We're figuring if her memory stays as sharp, she will be very useful in the future. We are not young parents, with both Big C and myself being in our early 40's and our memory not what it used to be.

She can remember where we left our sunglasses, remind us to take medication, and eventually tell us to put our underwear on the inside of our pants etc…

I guess its a lesson to be learned and one that I've always subscribed to. Never, ever, ever make a promise to your kid that you don't intend to keep. Because that little pickle head will remember it till the day you die!!

Til next time…use it or lose it…your brain that is

When the truth hurts

The saying is cliché, but sometimes the truth hurts. I had to tell the truth this week and it hurt. It hurt me and it hurt Big C, and that hurts.

We have been house hunting for quite some time now, it's not going well to say the least. We are thinking that perhaps we just don't have the budget for what we're looking for.

Or we have the budget, just that we have to go and live in the middle of butt f%$# nowhere.

There was one house that was sort of fitting the bill, overpriced in my opinion and not exactly what we were looking for but I suppose it would do.

We heard this week that there was an offer put in on it. Big C has been thinking about this place for a while, and he's sorta digging it.

I can see his point, its a pretty good base and we there's potential for making it the way we want. But at the top of our budget and 1000's of dollars in changes/upgrades are we making the right decision?

I see where he's coming from. I can envision what he'd like to do. 

I can't see myself living there. I want to in the worst way. I want to share his vision and optimism but I can't.

He asked if we could put a lowball offer in, just to see if we could take a stab at it. Our offer was going to be way off the asking price, I almost agreed with him on the premise that it would never be accepted.

But never say never right? I went on the notion that our offer was accepted, and then what? We sold our house and 3 months from now we were living there.

No, I couldn't do it. I couldn't even go through with that. I wasn't feeling it, I wasn't excited about moving to this place, no matter how remote the chance. I was sick inside about it, guts churning knowing that I'd have to say no.

Big C wants out of where we are for many reasons. Our house is not horrible by any means and suits our needs  in many ways. But we've sort of out grown it, or at least need a different arrangement of space. Maybe not more space, but a different allocation of it.

I stalled for a bit, saying I didn't know what to do. But after Miss K went to bed, I had to come out with it. I had to say that I just couldn't move there, that staying where we were was the better option.

Big C was upset. Or disappointed would probably be the better word. I think he thought I was digging this other place the way he was. It had lots going for it, but I wasn't feeling it, some intangible thing I couldn't put my finger on.

Big C asked me again yesterday morning to think about it some more. I guess he hadn't got much sleep. He figured it was a mistake not to at least try to get it.

I stewed about it for most of yesterday. It ate away at me a little more. But honesty won out again. Even if this house was well below our budget, I still don't think I'd want to be living there.

We talked again last night. More truths that hurt, but not being honest with Big C or myself for that matter would damage us even more. 

I hated crushing his vision, hated that look of sadness in his eyes. Hurting someone you love so much with nothing more than the truth.

I hope we can move onto something better someday. I hope there is a place out there that suits us and will fit our life. I hope its in line with both our hearts and minds and Miss K's too as she gets older.

I also hope that in the future I don't have to be truthful and cause so much pain in the process.

Til next time…tell the truth, even if it hurts