Puppies and puberty

Well, it's been an eye-opening few days with our new pup. She is a total love but housebreaking is going to be tricky. She does know what she is supposed to do outside but because this poor thing had been stuck in a cage, she is not even crate-trained because all her life, she had no choice but to go potty in her crate where she was sleeping and eating. I think I will go buy some
stock in the company that makes our brand of paper towels. She is teething like crazy too and bites everything and nibbles on us too. The scary thing is Olivia had an allergic reaction the other day all over her face and I had to give her allergy meds. She has never been allergic to dogs but I have to assume that having scratches on her face made her react to the saliva(this dog is a big kisser). Liv has a doctor's appt. today so this is one thing I will be talking to her doc about. Liv has been having stomach issues. I swear that this is all about her hormones kicking in. I've had IBS and food intolerances forever and it always seemed linked to my hormones. She
started getting headaches too. I just got out a little care package the girls were given in school.
Being the always prepared type, I am going to give her a little pouch of necessities to carry in her bag in school just in case "the curse" shows up. So I just read the pamphlets that were included in this kit. I had to laugh. I know we need to look at this as a happy time(though it never was for me thanks to severe cramps and endometriosis) but this stuff was too funny.
They included a "HAPPY KIT" which contained small pads. Honestly, opening that gives me
no feelings of joy whatsoever. They have questions and answers about puberty and periods and all the changes your body makes. One question is "When will my breasts stop growing?" While
I can't see a girl wanting to know that, unfortunately, if Liv takes after me the answer will be
"about 20 minutes after they start growing." The book says, "you will start thinking and behaving more like an adult." Yeah, I'm not holding my breath on that one. Has the author of this booklet actually been around 12 and 13 year-olds lately?!!! It says that wearing a bra will provide support and coverage and make you feel more comfortable. It's been 95 degrees here this week. Any woman who lives where it's hot and thinks having that slingshot on makes them more comfortable, raise your hand.......anybody?....I thought so. You can paint a rosy picture all you want but sometimes these things us women have to deal with just stink. The booklet shows a calendar with 3 days marked "I have PMS" and then 5 days marked, "MY PERIOD'S HERE!!!" Somehow, I don't think most of us have that kind of enthusiasm though after skipping a few cycles myself and one pregnancy test later, I must admit, I almost wrote that on the calendar myself this month. 'Cept I had PMS for 2 and 1/2 months. I warn Tim that these next few years may be interesting. Olivia's hormones are ramping up just when mine are giving up. I guess delaying motherhood until the 30's has this backlash of putting you in a hormonal
flux just when your kid(s) are too. Bad planning. Hopefully, our daughter does not have the terrible pain issues I had. There is a question that says, "what should I do if I have cramps?"
I am an old pro at this. My advice: Take pain meds around the clock and score a few days off
of school. If necessary, book a flight to the UK and give Bernard a little shot to the shins. ;o)
"What to do if the cramps are REALLY bad?" Kick Bernard's car.

Just kidding B!

Ugh, the puppy just peed the floor again. I gotta figure out how to strap those darn pads to
that little whizzer.

We are a dog family again

Well today, we went to pick up our new puppy. It was a long day. We left the house just after 9:30 in the morning and hit a ton of traffic because it was a beautiful beach day and the rentals
down the shore run Sat. to Sat. so we sat in traffic for almost an hour and got to where we were
going about 40 minutes late. We didn't make it back home until after 5 this evening. But, we fell in love immediately with this tiny, little bundle of love and
kisses. It is the floppy-eared beagle mix shown in the last post but she is tinier than she looks
in the photo. She weighs only about 8 pounds. She got car sick on the way home right after we
switched drivers and Tim had to clean it up. He was thrilled but this is also why we took my car
instead of his new truck. We were prepared though and had everything covered. She is still a bit queesy but other than that is doing really well. She's had a rough week.
They got her in after some woman took her away from a backyard breeder. She'd been stuck
in a cage in their back yard. She is so happy to be with people, her tail wags constantly. She just
loves everybody and when we stopped at a rest area everybody walked up to meet her. She makes everyone smile, she is that darn cute. Olivia is over the moon. The puppy is glad to have a family and a real home. Now I just hope she is OK when I take her to our vet to get checked out on Monday. Her tummy is still not
right and I am hoping it is the just leftover motion sickness. This poor thing has changed homes several times this past week, had all her vet work done, spaying and shots, so it's been a
tough few days for her. Then she spent all afternoon in a car and had a bath in the kitchen sink when she got here. What a day. She is now zonked out on a dog bed that is WAY too big. Hopefully, she gets her appetite back tomorrow and feels better. She's going to her first "dogfest" in the park. Should be fun. I'm sure she'll be the belle of the ball.

Ah yes, the pet adoption run-around

So I get an e-mail back yesterday from the dog shelter in CT. It said, "congratulations, your
adoption is approved but so sorry, that dog is spoken for." GGGRRRRRRR! I wrote back and
asked why I was told the dog was available and got an explanation that was either all lies or
meant that they already had people interested in the pup when they told me she was available to us. This brings back memories of 1995 when we were looking for a dog. The old bait and switch tactics are still being used. I like to rescue a dog
because I find purebred dogs tend to have more health problems so I like the mutts(though Sophie cost us a lot of money in vet bills in her lifetime). Oh heck, I woulda given that dog my kidney if she
needed it. Anyway, the problem with rescuing dogs is mainly the amount of pitbulls or unhealthy dogs they are trying to unload. While I am sure there are many good pitbulls and staffordshire terriers, they are not for me. I have heard too many stories and they scare me. We had a woman killed not far from here a few years ago and Tim's aunt's dog( a little poodle)
was attacked and killed by one out in CA last year. I don't totally believe that they have to be trained to fight as too many that are involved in attacks were not. We had several shelters call us back then telling me they had lab mixes(which I specified was all that I was interested in) only to drive out there to see a litter of pits they were hoping we'd
fall in love with once we saw them. One time, after several of these episodes, I had a shelter call me and say they got a batch of lab mix puppies in and I better come quick because they would go fast. I told them straight out that my husband would have to cancel an estimate and it would take an hour to drive there
so they better not show me pitbulls. She said, "oh no, these are labs." He cancelled his appt. and we drove out during rush hour to see a litter of pits again. I let them know I was NOT happy with them. While I have all the respect in the world for folks that give so much of themselves to
help animals, these kinds of tactics are just wrong and give them all a bad name. Too many of
these people are not above lying and telling people what they want to hear to get rid of an animal only to complain how many are turned back in to shelters. Well, DUH! This is not something I want to do especially with our kid involved. It takes us 3 seconds to fall in love with an animal so I am trying to get as much useful information out of these folks as I can before we lay eyes
on more than just a photo. So, though I am second in line, that first shelter said, to pick from the litter that the other pup was from, I'm not sure I want to deal with them now. I'm also a little afraid of how muscular in the front legs and the chest the pups look to be in the pictures as that is one way you can tell you have pit in there. Also, they are being trucked up from Georgia so I really don't think they know much about these dogs at all other than what the mother is 'cause she was rescued with the pups. I thought these dogs were found in CT. We found this other pup(for now we'll call her Plan B) but we have to travel 2 1/2 hours one way to see the little thing. The woman I'm dealing with seems pretty nice so I hope she is being straight with me. I've got better things to do than drive 5 hours to get ticked off. Heck, I can get ticked off at home.

the puppy problem

When we lost our Sophie dog 2 years ago, though we were definitely devastated, it opened up
opportunities in travelling that we did not have before. Our dog was a very anxious animal and
we feared she could never tolerate being kenneled and had no other options other than the in-laws to watch her. (everyone else had pets and she was quite anxious around other dogs too and she chased cats)
I swore it would be awhile before we got another dog and yesterday, I fell in love with this little
border collie mix in CT on petfinder.com. Though I am loving being able to travel to new places with Tim and Olivia, we are not loving being sans dog. We are all animal lovers and to wait a few years makes
little sense in a way as Olivia will be out with her friends more than at home by then. On the other hand, I know of about 4 families who got dogs in the last few years that are not so happy.
The dogs either never house trained or ripped their furniture up and they wish they never did it.
A girlfriend of mine actually tried to get rid of her hyper yorkipoo several times. Sophie was great that way. She never trashed our house and once trained, she never went in the house till she was so ill at the end. It's a hard decision. Olivia keeps saying she'd rather have a dog than go on all these vacations but that is
easy to say. I have to believe that we can get a dog that is not so skittish this time. We have a wonderful,
family-owned kennel just down the street from us and friends and family that we can trade dog-sitting with too as long as this one gets on with other varmints. For once, Tim has shown some
softening in his resolve not to get another dog. He was so upset to lose Sophie that he actually
told me it was harder than being told he has cancer. Then there is also the hope that the vet bills would not reach what they did with Sophie but I think I would buy insurance this time. Sophie
blew out both her ACL's 2 1/2 years apart(she thought she was a football player, I guess) and the surgeries cost us 5 grand.Total vet bills over her life probably hit about 10 to 12K. We need to think very carefully about this but all resolve goes out
the window when you lay eyes on this little cutie. I just think it would bring so much joy to us all.
And they say being around animals lowers your blood pressure. I guess I should adopt a baker's dozen of them then. And a llama. I definitely want a llama.

On bumbling birthdays and being low maintenance

I celebrated the 17th anniversary of my 28th birthday on 8/8 while we were away in New Hampshire. I am not easy to shop for. I am not materialistic, hence no long list of "I wants" hanging around, heck not even a short list. I am more into getting rid of stuff cluttering up my house instead of bringing more in and lets face it, after 25 years together, you run out of ideas for each other though the last 2 gifts I gave Tim were a big, flat screen TV and a brand new truck so I guess I had a few tricks left up my sleeve. So Tim told me while driving to NH that he wracked his brains for weeks and couldn't come up with anything. I said, "don't worry." He said "buy whatever you want on vacation." How romantic. For about the past 10 years my answer for the "what do you want" question has always been, "I want my house finished." 15 years later, he never finished the renovations he started. Yeah, it's mostly just trim work that's left but I'd sure like to see this place completed. No such luck. So I get cards from him and Olivia on my birthday. I'm glad to be in gorgeous New Hampshire with them and my whole family calls me on
my cell while we're sight-seeing that day(I share this birthday with my younger sister by the way.)
And Tim's mother calls me a day later, sheepishly admitting she forgot, and said "we'll do cake when you guys get here"(we spent the 2nd leg of our vaca at their house in Vermont). Later during the day of my birthday, Tim does something that really ticked me off. He and Olivia have
a habit of never listening to me and then when something goes wrong, I am the one who has to
fix it or suffers the consequences along with them. This aggravates me. So I told Tim that what I should have asked for on my birthday was one day of them listening to me and not causing me grief. We get to Vermont a few days later. My mother-in-law and sis-in-law are there. I guess the cake thing just wasn't that important 'cause they blew it off. Then, my older sister and brother-in-law come up to their VT house which is 15 minutes away. They have become good friends with my in-laws. That day, the 13th, was my brother-in-law's birthday. My mother-in-law invites them over for dinner and decides a cake and candles and singing are in order for my sis's husband. I'm thinking now, "Hmmm should I tell her?" I've known my b-i-l since I was 13. He HATES his birthday. He REALLY HATES being the center of attention and being reminded of getting older. So I tell her. She says, "Oh OK I'll make him a chocolate cream pie 'cause he likes when I make them and nix the candles and singing." Note: No, I did not tell her this because of any shrugged off celebration of my birthday. My b-i-l would have cringed down to his very core if they did this. So they celebrate Rich's b-day with a bar-b-q and pie. Today is 8/18. I have yet to have a cake for
my birthday so I am making my own damn cake tomorrow. I did buy a piece of cheesecake to go from the restaurant we ate at on my b-day. It was good until I accidentally tipped it over on the rug in the hotel room. 5 second rules don't apply when it's a hotel room carpet. YUCK! BUT things could have been worse. I came home from vaca and called my younger sis the next day(we hadn't spoken since our b-day.) Her husband had no idea it was her birthday and completely forgot. Obviously, her 7 and 3 year olds then did not know either. Holy moley!!! I said "COOL". And she's like "Yep, howdaya like that?" I thought she was gonna tell me that she didn't let on and the whole day went by without them knowing but my mom called her to wish her a happy birthday and make arrangements to go out for dinner together and asked my little niece on the phone what they were doing for mommy's birthday.
So my niece then went in to wake up daddy (around noon) and tip him off. Pathetic really. I said to my sister, it doesn't pay to be low maintenance. If we were those type of women who expected SO much from people and got their feelings hurt at every little slight, real or imagined, this stuff would never happen to us. So despite the fact that my arse does not need birthday cake, tomorrow I am baking one up anyway. Cake anyone?

P.S. Since I always kvetch that nobody listens to me, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt in Delaware last month I just have to find for Tim. It said. " My wife complains I never listen to her....
or something like that." Perfect!!!!!!

Home is where....the work is

We just got in from Vermont last night. The seven hour trip took almost 9 and 1/2 thanks to

traffic and I drove the whole thing due to throwing out my back a few days ago. I fidget and slouch like crazy in the passenger seat so driving kept me sitting up straight the whole

trip. New Hampshire was terrific and is my new favorite state. I love Vermont but it is a very poor state with little work

and not a ton to do especially if you are in the northern section where my out-laws and sister

have vaca homes. New Hampshire has a lot more metropolitan areas and much more to offer,

and breathtaking beauty everywhere you look. We went to a Shaker village,

the Anhauser-Busch brewery, and toured around the capitol city of Concord. We were able to

get in a few more family-style events before Tim got violently ill on Tuesday night. I think he

got food poisoning but then Olivia woke up Wednesday and hurled too. I know they did not eat the same thing and I doubted they

had a virus and Olivia has been having some GI issues but then I started to suspect that maybe the water they may have swallowed on a bumper boats ride may have done something.
It looked pretty gross now that I think of it.

Who knows? We were leaving NH and heading to VT that day so I packed the truck while they were both in bed. Tim took some tylenol for his

wicked headache and they both made a miraculous recovery by the time we were ready to check out.

We cancelled hiking a gorge that day and just high-tailed it to Vermont to let them rest up. We stayed at Tim's folks' house and got to spend some time with his sis and brother-in-law and their kids which was nice. They live 10 minutes away from home here but we don't see them that often with everyone's busy schedules. Tim's P's are still fighting like the Hatfields and McCoys up there but me managed to avoid front row seats to most of it. So much for their golden years though they have always fought like crazy so I guess it's just what they settle for in a relationship. Not my idea of happily ever after. I never got out on the golf course. I carried all sorts of luggage down multiple staircases at the inn and hoisted it into the bed of Tim's truck with no problem('cept some huffing and puffing) and then threw out my back sitting cock-eyed in a lawn chair the next day. We took Olivia for another horseback riding lesson and we just adore this family up in Vermont where she takes lessons. They have 60 acres and horses, cows, sheep, chickens, etc. We talked with the couple for over an hour after the lesson. I'm jealous in a way 'cause I always wanted that life as a kid but I think now, it would be way too alienating for me. They have no cell phone service and coyotes and if something happened here at my house, I could run outside and scream and a whole lot of people would hear it. In the country, you are really on your own. She told me we should

move up there(she lived in Jersey as a teen) but I said it's not that easy. I told her about Tim's MM and said the only way we could move to New England was if we stayed close to Dana Farber in Boston. Southern New Hampshire would fit that bill and after being cut off by multiple NY and NJ drivers yesterday(I knew I was getting close to home when that started)

including a Jeep full of young kids who almost hit us and then threw trash out on the street right in the middle of an intersection a block from my home, I'm tempted to sell everything and move

there tomorrow. People are just so different when you get out of this rat race in the NYC metro
area. Don't get me wrong. NJ has a lot to offer and that's why we are so darned overcrowded but
there is just too much money in this area. People are too "keep up with the Joneses" and self-ab-
sorbed. There are plenty of good folks too but we have such a reputation in this area that sometimes I'm embaressed to say where I'm from when people ask when we're travelling. Lately though, I have been purposely looking at what we have all around us in NJ and trying to remember times when I have met people who moved and then realized they didn't know how
good they had it. One couple I met, moved out of a suburb of Washington DC, realized they had
taken a whole lot for granted and when they tried to move back, they could no longer afford to live there because of the housing prices. This could certainly be true of where I live so I try to remember all that's positive about this state everytime I get cut off or see its downfalls. So today the new list of "to-do's" was started. It will be neverending as always. By tonight, I'll have 5 loads of laundry done plus a whole lot of other errands and be exhausted I'm sure but it's always nice to be sleeping in your own bed and home where the heart is(kinda). I was actually planning 2 more weekend trips but Liv says she's had it travelling and wants to hang at the pool with her
friends. I guess it's time for the lazy, hazy days of summer, though by the looks of my to-do list,
it doesn't look like I'll be the one doing the lazy thing. It's back to work for me, as if it ever stopped.

Off to new england

Tomorrow, we leave for a 10 day trip to New Hampshire and Vermont. I am excited. I haven't
visited NH since I was a kid and I can't wait. We'll be staying by Concord for a few days and
seeing the sights there and then we're spending a few nights further north in Littleton at an
inn that opened in 1850 as a railroad boarding lodge. It has a huge cupola on top overlooking
the town and surrounding area. I've found some cool things to do; a little something for everyone. The weather looks like it's gonna be great. I just love exploring new areas like this.
My parents instilled this in me with all the trailering around we did when I was young. There are
so many great places to see in this country. I would love to go across country again. I want Tim and Olivia to see some of the places I saw when we went in '77. For now, since I hate to fly, and owning your own business is not condusive to taking 2 months off, we go places we can drive to
and do in long weekends or our weeks off. Luckily, there is an endless supply of these places in
the northeast. We'll wrap up the trip with a few days in Vermont with most of Tim's family at
his parents' house. Hopefully, that goes smoothly. His parents have been fighting like crazy being
up there together. I don't think my father-in-law's retirement suits either one of them well. You know the old saying, "for better or worse but NOT for lunch." My sis is giving me the keys to her VT house JUST IN CASE things get too hairy. Always good to have a back-up plan. Off to pack. Hope everyone's enjoying their summer. :o)