Getting into the Spirit

I've been in denial about how quickly Christmas is approaching... Maybe it's because we didn't put up a tree this year since we'll be visiting family.

Koda picked her candy cane that Grandma (John's mom) gave her last Christmas out of her toy basket and went to town. It was then that it hit me... Christmas is this week!

I sent this picture to her Grandma,



I'm super excited to see my family in a couple of days. I plan to post closer to Christmas, but just in case... I want to wish you a wonderful holiday!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Snapshot Wednesday

Things have been quiet around here... I'm in the middle of a couple of projects right now that I'd like to post about but want to wait until they're finished. So, here's some pictures I took of Koda last week with my iPhone :).

She was trying to tell me she was hungry. Hungry eyes!

The Pupdog is Clean!

I realized when I was taking these shots that with my new TX5 camera, I could have taken some while I was giving her a bath. Doh!



I bought a Rinse Ace Pet Shower Deluxe Chrome months ago and finally remembered to attach it and USE it this time. What a difference having a spray nozzle makes! I loved how I could turn on the spray by pressing the button. I (and Koda) didn't have to worry about the faucet or water spraying randomly at her and/or around the bathroom - which used to happen when using a detachable shower head. This was quick to install (3 min max) and made bathing easy and less stressful. Hurray!

Before & After: Front Yard Centerpiece

We started off our Memorial Day weekend by improving our front yard landscaping... Below is the "before" picture. Notice the lovely empty pot in the middle of the rock garden. This picture is from when we looked at the house before buying it last September. To me, this empty pot looks out of place, too small for the area, and well... empty.

Before Picture

We decided to spruce this area up. We went to Home Depot and spent 3 hours getting items on our long shopping list but a good portion of that time was spent selecting a half whiskey barrel (LOVE it!) and choosing flowers to be planted inside. 

Once we brought home the barrel - still smelling of whiskey - we drilled a couple of drainage holes in the bottom, sanded down the cut edge (after a couple of splinters), treated the wood, and then got to the good part of filling it will soil, tall grass, and flowers!

After Picture!

I just love the details of the barrel, and I think it's more size appropriate for the space (hard to tell in these pictures but it is much larger than the original pot). We'd love to replace those rocks with mulch but we decided to wait on that for now. I choose to plant perennials... Feather Reed Grass Overdam, Delphinium Blue Mirror, and Linaria Enchantment but because they are above ground they will probably not survive winter. I chose these because a) they are drought resistant (hard for me to kill), and b) they should bloom through early fall! Now that it's been a couple of weeks, they've really filled out and have many more blooms. I really should post a recent picture... but that would probably delay this post. Ha!

Oh, and Koda supervised the entire process of course.

Linking up to:

Koda's 5th Birthday

So I was supposed to post this on Koda's birthday... Let's just pretend this was posted then, OK?

Koda was born on April 8th, 2005 but we didn't meet her and adopt her until September that year when she was five months old. Wasn't she cute?

The picture above was taken when we first brought her home. She was so shy and timid... it took a few days for her to show us her true personality. I can't believe she is 5 already!

We went for a walk and she got a kong full of peanut butter to celebrate among other treats throughout the day (and she got 2 hikes the following weekend!). I think it's the funniest thing to watch her try and get all the PB out of her kong. I had fun taking these pictures. Just in case you couldn't tell.

 Happy Birthday Koda!

Gorgeous Day

We've gotten a few bouts of snow over the past week. Yesterday afternoon it started snowing again, the beautiful kind - big flakes swirling down. I tried to capture it on video but it didn't come out well. Here's some pictures from this morning (though the first photo was taken last week).



Not much has been going on with me. I'm still job hunting, applying to positions, and I signed up for a couple of virtual career fairs. It's been really frustrating. I've gotten 3 of these type emails in the past couple of weeks:

"You recently applied for the ______ position with _____. This job has been cancelled and no applicants have been hired for the position."

 *sigh*
 
I'm trying to take advantage of this time off. I'm still looking for things to get involved in during the day. It seems like most everything I'm interested in doesn't really kick into gear until spring. Apparently everything stops in the winter for skiing!

To update you on that project I'm working on... well... I realized that it is too cold here to stain/finish the wood, so it kinda took the steam out of the project. I got my finisher nail gun last week, but I was silly and forgot to order nails for it! So now I'm on a hunt. To be honest I haven't really gone out of my way to get them. I stopped by a hardware store yesterday since it was right next door to where I was going anyway... but they didn't have the right ones. Boo. Anyway, I'm anxious to show you what I'm doing so I think I'm going to finish building this weekend and just wait and stain it when it warms up.

My SIL (1 of 3) is coming to visit this weekend! I love visitors! K is so much fun to be around, so full of energy that she never stops going. Makes me tired thinking about it :).

Have a great weekend!

Snow, posing, and grilled cheese!

I rolled out of bed first this morning, and went downstairs to let Koda outside. I was pulling back the curtain of the sliding glass doors when I noticed the yard was dusted with snow, and good size snowflakes were coming down. Before I could catch myself I squealed "it's SNOWING"!  John couldn't stay sleeping after that exclamation. Here is a picture taken around lunch time...

 

Here's one of Koda... she's a little confused with me because she associates me opening the door with letting her inside, but I just pushed her back and made her sit and pose. She humored me this time.

 

We enjoyed watching the snow fall most of the day. Then we watched the Super Bowl (yay for the underdogs, the Saints!), well OK, John watched the Super Bowl. I made dinner - homemade Italian wheat bread for grilled cheeses with Tomato Chunk Bisque - and phoned my Granny to catch up.

Great lazy snow day!

Basket Case

Last week I discovered the HomeGoods store... which could be dangerous. It's owned by TJ Maxx and is a discount store for house goods. I spent 2.5 hours in that store and felt rushed because I had to leave at a certain time so I could meet friends for dinner. I loaded up a cart and bought I don't know how many items for under $150. Unfortunately I'm taking about half of it back because I wasn't prepared... I got the wrong size rugs, the wrong color towels, etc.. Never fear, I will correct this when I make the returns.

Can you guess what my favorite find was? No, not wall art... or a rug for our powder room I want to completely re-do.

My favorite purchase was a basket. Yes, a basket. It's been in my possession for a week and I'm STILL excited... it makes me smile every time I look at it. Who'd a thunk I could get so excited over a basket that I'd want to blog about it? Well, maybe it's because it's a great improvement over the basket it's replacing that held all of Koda's toys.

Check out the basket it replaced and notice the broken handle and overflow of toys.

Mmkay... so we can't bare to throw away any of her toys. These are all the toys she's ever owned, except the few ones she absolutely destroyed when we made the mistake of getting her soft toys as a puppy. Honestly, I don't think she has that many for being 4 years old. She's more of a lover than a player.

Here's the new basket! Just ignore that sneaky pesky pine needle that has somehow avoided being vacuumed since Christmas.

I heart the paw stamped metal plate. It's paw-fect! I know, what cheese... I couldn't resist.

Oh, and did I mention the price? It cost $7.99 - not bad!

Bah, Humbug!

It's a gorgeous day outside. I should be taking the pupdog for a walk along the creek... but it's just not going to happen today. I am cleaning like a maniac and hopefully baking up a storm later this afternoon in preparation for my in-laws arriving tomorrow. Sorry Koda, but you will be getting a bath today, YAY! Hmmm, she doesn't seem to be as excited as I am...

Koda says, "Bah! Humbug!"

Flush Puppies

Has anyone tried these?



They are pricey... Wonder if I could find them online cheaper. Sorry for the blurry picture, it was taken with my iPhone on the plane!

Do you know that doggie poo run-off is bad for streams and rivers? I know, you'd think it would be a natural occurence you wouldn't have to worry about! I read an article about this issue recently that explained it really well, if I find it again I will update this post to include the link.



Thankfully, our pup dog Koda only does her business in our yard (we didn't purposely train her this way but we like it). We let her poo deteriate in the grass. It really hasn't been an issue for us since compared to other doggies we know she doesn't poop as much (we're convinced it's because we feed her Purina ProPlan). Obviously when we travel we have to clean up after her... But from what I've learned recently we should be picking up her poo all the time. Ugh.



I am selfishy posting these pictures of Koda because she's just a cutie and I miss her! One of her favorite things in the world is fresh cut grass :). I had to drop her off at the kennel today and it was harder than usual because I could hear her whining in the back... probably because she could hear me talking to the girl at the desk about her fear of thunderstorms.

Would you a) use Flush Puppies and actually flush them down your toilet, and b) pay $2 for 15? How do you manage your dogs/pets poo? Really, I wanna know!

-- Post From My iPhone