Bye Bye Girl and Butterfly Wings

When I was a little girl my nickname from my mom and dad was Bye Bye girl. I had just started to talk and whenever anyone would begin to look like they were going somewhere I would start toddling around the house saying "bye, bye, bye, bye..." and then insist that I come. I love to go places. To this day I love to go Bye Bye. When I was in my early 20's, ha ha I am 25 now so it wasn't that long ago, my Grandma Trudy started to call me "Butterfly Wings." She herself had a pair. We love to travel and will take any excuse we can find to do so. Since my Grandma passed in October I have come to realize that though I want her here she is better off using her Butterfly wings in heaven then being grounded here. She wouldn't stand for it and I understand. I have learned from my dear friend who recently did a tribute to a sister/friend that she lost, that those people will never be forgotten as long as we carry them in our memories and hearts. My grandma always said I was a little root of her and I know a part of her will always be alive in me.

As you all know Mike has spent much of his time either working or commuting. It has worn him down very quickly so in an effort to help him I of course began to flit my butterfly wings. First, I thought lets visit friends. We got their hopes up that we would come and visit them on the west side of the state and then dashed their hopes by canceling. I was a little bummed that the timing wouldn't work for us but I know we will make it happen soon. I quickly began looking for something to do on a weekend that we had free. I found that one of my favorite authors, Susan Wiggs is holding a book signing/workshop this month in Cannon Beach, OR. So Bye Bye girl was quick to book a weekend away at The Ocean Lodge in Cannon beach. It is a splurge but we decided to take a smaller trip this summer in order to accommodate this one.

I am probably more excited about this than Mike, he is excited however. Recently I decided to take a writing class with another author, Patricia Kay, when I couldn't find anything from Susan Wiggs that I could attend. The online class with Patricia Kay starts tomorrow. The weekend of February 23- 26 we are in Cannon Beach where Susan will be doing a book signing, a writing workshop and a dinner. I have to say that I am thrilled. Mike is just excited to get out of town and relax. Our room has a fireplace and a jacuzzi tub, which we got for a great deal since we are attending the book signing/workshop. My Grandma, a voracious reader and an honorary member of the butterfly wings club would most definitely approve. Here's to you Grandma!

Bye Bye girl strikes again!

www.susanwiggs.com

www.patriciakay.com

LET THE SHEDDING BEGIN!

Yesterday afternoon I arrived at home for lunch and was greeted by my loving, loyal companions and surrogate children, Jemma and Duke. I look down to see that following Duke are chunks of hair flying off of him. So I decide to further investigate and find that I can pull a whole chunk of hair off of him with very little effort. My Golden Retriever is going bald, what happened. I instantly began to worry. I started to brush and quickly found that it was no fluke. I grabbed my cell phone and called the vet. We had just bathed him the night before and we had used a new shampoo, I thought maybe that was causing his sudden hair loss. The vet wasn't in. So I scoured the web to find that twice a year Golden's have a time of massive shedding. I thought this would make sense but Jemma had never lost this much fur. Then realized that Jemma doesn't have the same type of coat as Duke. Duke's is much thicker and he has the typical undercoat for a Golden and that was what he was shedding. Great! Now my house is filled with hair. Thank GOD for my new Dyson Animal. I vacuumed at lunch and then came home later and found the hall filled with small tufts of fur everywhere I turned. I realized that I wasn't angry I didn't want to get rid of him and as annoying as all this was I still wanted to pet and snuggle this big monster. A small glimpse of what I will one day feel for a child filled my heart. I have to say that I am so grateful for these two dogs. You all might get tired of hearing my tale of two dogs but for me every new day with them helps me to know that I can love, support and care for children someday and these crazy pooches are living proof. For the boost of confidence and faith thank you, Duke and Jemma.

The hair in the bag is from brushing Duke for 5 minutes and the hair in the vacuum is from one trip down the hall. Not our only full canister for the evening.

Ninja Morning Dog


Duke, has turned into, what I affectionately call, Ninja morning dog. At first it started out as just morning dog but recently he has stepped up his game and we added Ninja to his new title. Duke is definitely a morning dog as soon as the sun is out, or as soon as he has deemed it morning Ninja morning dog is up and pacing around the bed waiting for the first signs of life. As soon as you toss, turn, roll over or breath loudly he takes that as his invitation to join you and with the stealthiness of a 70lb dog who thinks he weighs 25lbs he jumps on the bed and straddles his victim licking frantically at air, hands, feet, faces, knees or elbows, whatever gets in the way until he is satisfied that he has sufficiently welcomed you into the new day. Then he finds a cozy spot on the bed to lay waiting until you to get out of bed. Then he is in hot pursuit flinging himself from the bed with gusto and a look on his face that screams "READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!" My new alarm clock is annoying but really cute!

So it is time for a new post and unfortunately our lives haven't gotten any more interesting. Mike today said "It is like you live in Spokane and I live in my car." It is sad but true. There is a light at the end of the tunnel hopefully by May he won't need to commute nearly as much. This week my friend Nicole came to town to visit her sister Courtney and we all went shopping and had a day on the town with their boys, Eli and Peyton. Then this weekend. Mike and I went to dinner with some of his coworkers at a place called Europa. Great food, good atmosphere. If you are in Spokane and want a great place to eat I would highly recommend it.

Today, we tried a new church out. I won't use names to protect the innocent. It was truly a lovely church, the message was good but everything else was very Catholic. A lot of liturgy. We also should have taken the automatic doors as a sign that this wasn't the church for us. We walked through the automatic opening doors and found ourselves staring at the backs of silver and shiny heads and instantly knew we were going to be in fellowship with our grandparents friends. There is nothing wrong with this, but Mike and I are looking for a social outlet where we can meet people that are in the same place in life. When we looked through the bulletin to find the titles of their small groups were things like "Empty Nester's," and "Investment club," confirmation that we should keep looking stared us in the face. We decided if we ever try a church with automatic doors, no offense, but we will probably turn around and head back to the car.

Another week...

Outside of the excitement of the ink on the carpet, which came out for the most part but I am still finding spots, this week has been just another week. I can't believe how quickly the month is flying by. I went down and stayed with Mike at our friends in Moscow. Vic and Sharon are very gracious to let Mike, and occasionally me, stay with them to help cut Mike's commute down. He has had others offer their homes too and it means a lot to us. We spent most of the weekend around the house. Mike was really motivated to paint but I haven't quite decided what I want to paint and what color so I asked if we could hold off for a little while. Mike ended up watching a lot of football, I read a book, David went out with friends and worked and then last night we all played scrabble and then I buy ( a card game). We had a good time.

I think every appliance and gadget in our home has taken a que from the vacuum and decided to give up. The printer died this week as well. It was getting kind of old I guess. The electric mixer smells like smoke every time I turn it on. Then the washer and dryer seem to be on their way out too. The dryer now takes 2 runs to dry anything and that is if you put in a really small load. The washer doesn't seem to be cleaning clothes they come out smelling like we left the load in overnight when we didn't. It isn't a good sign. I really don't want to foot the bill for a new washer and dryer. I can handle a printer no problem in fact buying a new printer was kind of fun. The problem with the washer dryer is that I want to buy the super duper cool front load set. I want the one in red but it's really spendy. Mike wants to salvage what we have and make it work for as long as possible. I have to agree but they are between 10 - 12 years old and I can't imagine them lasting for much longer given their symptoms.

The Merits of Hardwood

For a long time I have firmly believed in having hardwood floors. My reasons include my theory that you can never really clean a carpet, once something goes into your carpet it permanently lives there. For instance your 10 month old baby is crawling around and all of the sudden throws up on your precious carpet. For the next 10 – 15 minutes, in between coddling your young love, you work fervently to remove puke from the carpet. Of course you are able to get most of it but some is ultimately left living and breathing in your carpet. Next your young love is having his afternoon bottle and gets distracted as the dog blasts, torpedo style, through the back door with mud on his feet. Young love throws the bottle aside in hot pursuit of his furry friend and soon you realize you have mud and milk living in your carpet. Now some might say “your pour youngster has to learn to walk and crawl on hard wood how cruel.” I however say to those people with hardwood you just wipe up vomit, mop up mud and milk and they are gone forever! Ahhhh, what peace to know that my young love can safely crawl on my clean floors without encountering year old dog puke and dirt. Finally, the reason I want hardwood real bad. Duke, I love him, I love him, I love him (repeat 10 more times). Duke jumped on the counter and snatched a pen today. I might not have known if it wasn’t for the giant black spot on the top of his head and paw along with the several black spots spatter across my hallways and living room. I don’t care how wonderful my new Dyson may be. I WANT HARDWOOD!

New Vacuum...

Nicole so nicely asked for a new blog entry and I know that I haven't be on here lately to update. Mike and David got a computer game called "Age of Empires" for Christmas and between the two of them it can be difficult to get on the computer when I am feeling inspired. Besides that my life truly lacks any excitement, cute kids and funny events aren't a part of my daily life. I wish they were but they aren't so you will have to suffer through my vacuum cleaner story.

After 4 years, dog hair, Christmas tree needles, mutilated stuffed animals, 1 apartment and 2 homes, lots of dirt, a few clogs and a lot of filter cleanings our $100 Bissell that my mom got us as a wedding gift gave up. At least we thought it had. After 2 years of dreaming and planning and researching I had decided a long time ago that I wanted a Dyson animal. Problem, the lack of $600. I hoped that it would go down in price and if you find a deal or go with a different model they are cheaper than that. When the good ole Bissell gave up on us we decided that it had given us a good run and it was time. We found that we had the money and I went into full on search mode to find my fabulous deal. Low and behold on eBay there was a refurbished Dyson Animal for $370 with S & H. Refurbished didn't scare me and I needed a vacuum, especially with the removal of mammoth tree looming over our heads. So I ordered it. Then the next day we decided we really needed to vacuum. With two dogs you can hardly wait a week and after a day or two I am itching to drag the vacuum out again. The Bissell decided it had a little more umph left and wasn't going to let the newer model take over without a good fight and it gave one last good vacuum. Now my Dyson is nestled happily in the closet after a hard days work. It wasn't able to conquer mammoth trees trail of pine needles, the shop vac had to take over, but I don't know of a vacuum cleaner that could have handled that. The tree literally took 3 good shoved to make it out the back slider. I think ever needle it had was lost in that battle. After cleaning up the pine needles with the shop vac I was able to give my Dyson it's inaugural vacuum around the house. Christmas is nicley tucked away in the garage and I love my Dyson...so far!

Notice the dirt in the canister makes a lovely accessory. :)