Happy B-day, My Little April Fool!

Yesterday was my baby's second birthday!
Here are some pics of the festivities. :)

Ooh! Ooh! More treats PLEEEEAAAASE!!!

Mmmmmmm! That was GOOOOD!!

That is my "little" ninety-some pound birthday girl. I wish I could have gotten some better shots but for some reason whenever I put the birthday hats on them they start running away, pawing at their heads and trying to rub them on things! I don't know why!! ;)


And lastly, here's Shilo after overdoing it a bit. lol

Shortly thereafter he threw up. Ha! Kidding!

I'm thinking maybe next year we should have an actual party and invite friends over!  lol  :)

Status Update

Well I’m making definite progress in my goals for 2010!

I got my crap together and successfully entered one of my photos in a juried exhibition, BVAS Art Fête 2010. (BVAS stands for Burnsville Visual Artists Society.)

Last Thursday evening was the opening reception and awards ceremony, and guess what?!
I won the Award Of Excellence in Photography!

That was the top award for a category. The absolute #1 award was Best In Show. I didn’t win that one. I had my picture taken accepting the award from the mayor of Burnsville (MN). Not sure where that is. I’ll have to do some more searching to see if I can find it.

My good friend, Lena, took time out of her schedule to make it to the reception. And that took some effort, so thanks Lena! Seriously, for someone who is currently out of work she sure is busy! Someone better snatch her up soon because she is dedicated! :)

She took this of me by my photo after the ribbons were put up. (Hubby was there but we told him to go home as he wasn’t feeling well. He was there to see me accept my award so he did his duty.)




I’m still a bit shocked about winning in the photo, not to mention exhausted, so it’s not the best pic of me. I don’t think I’m all that photogenic in general either, but whatever…

Now I am working on getting my submission together for an opportunity to have my work displayed in a gallery in Stillwater. I have to have everything together and it HAS to be received by April 20. My goal is to have it all completed and in the mail by the end of this month.

As far as the running goes, I have yet to run a race this Spring. I am still looking for one to enter that is a month or so out. (I was a bit too absorbed in the whole exhibition thing to get my crap together with the race running.)

However, I HAVE been keeping up with running at least twice a week, and sometimes three times – or THRICE. ;) Also, in addition to joining the running meetup group, I’ve found a work friend who is interested in getting back into running and have gone with her a couple times. Anything to keep me moving – I’ve got a 10K to run this fall!

And in the category of spending good quality time with hubby and taking some vacations with him in the new camper, we have reservations at Glacier National Park in July for our extra alone time around the time of my family reunion in MT.

Slowly but surely, I’m getting things accomplished. That’s how I have to do it. Otherwise, I run the very real risk of losing it. I’ve been seriously burned out lately and so need to spend some recouping time in between it all, which will be a challenge when I have a bazillion e-mails coming from my dad about all the exhibitions I need to enter – and get my stuff entered a month before the deadline.

…and get all of the photos and verbiage to him for the website he is making for me so I have an online portfolio that I can put on my resume. Never mind the fact that I already have a portfolio on a local artists’ site.

…and “getting published” because that is apparently “material” for an artist’s resume. My thought is that you only write something and try to get it published if you actually have something OF VALUE to contribute. My head hurts just thinking about this.

…and start looking at schools to register for to get an MFA that he says he will “help” me with (i.e. cover costs for the next couple/few years – though not even sure if that means everything or just tuition) so that I can teach photography as a way to make steady income since apparently I can’t possibly make an income off my art. That would be a good plan – if I was interested in teaching! I am much more interested in earning steady income working on my own or for an independent photographer or a business doing wedding photography, portraits, event photography, etc. And if I couldn’t make a decent living off of that alone, I could work for a store like Nation.al Cam.era, where I would most likely be provided with free training on advances in photo technology in order to serve customers.

All this because I’m apparently “on a roll.” I’m going to have to rein him in and let him know as diplomatically as possible that I need to do this stuff on MY OWN SCHEDULE and in MY WAY in order to preserve my last shred of sanity!

Like they say; baby steps, baby steps…

Or more aptly, “SERENITY NOW!”

Happy Birthday, My Little Fool (Pics added)

(Pics have now been added. Normally I would only post the "good" ones but I figured the entire series would give a better feel for the "mood" of the party. ;) I just wish that I would have had SH take pictures during the feeding frenzy... )

My little girl turned one yesterday. I'm using the term "little" loosely mind you as the last time we weighed her about a week ago, she rang in at around 105 lbs. or so. It was a bit difficult to tell since the scale kept bouncing around due to the near impossibility of SH standing still enough on the bathroom scale while holding bodonkadog.

So of course since I kind of forgot to do anything special for poor Shilo's birthday, which we had guestimated was around March 20, I decided we needed to do a little something for a combo b-day celebration. I had to stop at the store on the way home for some more packs of that Or.tega Chipotle taco mix (that's some good shit!) so I figured I should get something for the dogs. I found a couple sirloin steak variety Cea.sar dog food - the dog equivalent of Fa.ncy Feast - AND I happened to find a pack of Happy Birthday party hats!

Of course the whole deal was chaos.

Neither dog wanted to wear the hat for more than a couple seconds and they both listen to commands like "Sit" SO WELL (sarcasm) that I only got one good picture out of it (besides the evil eyes).

They LOVED the treat so much though that it was like a shark feeding frenzy. Had I really thought it out, I would have flopped the meat cakes onto some kind of little plates and immediately plaved in from them after putting the hats on so that I could maybe get a decent picture. Instead, I ended up chasing them around for a good 10 minutes with the camera while SH yelled and swore at them as they were ignoring the sit commands.

Then I threw the meat cake down for them - still in the plastic molds mind you - and watched as they mangled the whole thing trying to get to the food, and Shilo run off into the corner with his.

Then, when I tried to help him by wrestling the chomped container away (with the complete meat cake still intact) and plunking it out on the floor, out of nowhere comes fat girl who in a split second snatches up the cake and inhales it! I don't think I have ever seen her move so fast! Luckily she had only managed to get about a third of her portion dislodged from the mold so I quickly grabbed that one and gave it to Shilo.

Happy Birthday little girl! Momma wuvs you! - And of course Shilo too! :)

Interview with an Irish Girl

I meant to do this a few weeks ago (at least!) when I first received it but had to mull over a couple hard questions. These were really good! Also, things got nuts at work backing people up who have the nerve to take vacations when I am stuck here! BASTARDS!
Blah blah blah

Anyhoo...

On to the Q & A! Yay!

1) If you could relive one day of your life, which would you choose and why? (you can't change anything that happens, just relive it)

Probably the first full day in Paris with SH. We saw some sights, wandered around the Latin Quarter and sat in a café drinking coffee. It was wonderful and magical. We’ve been planning to go back there since – for a longer time of course – at least 1.5 to 2 weeks. Or maybe longer. ;)

2) When you are 57 years old, what would you like life to look like?

Be totally debt free, traveling the world with SH and friends, have lots of money socked away in investments, etc. to pay for travels and maybe living somewhere warmer with a friend or two (and SH, of course)?

3) Describe an experience that you've had that really made an impact on who you are today.

Probably my parent’s divorce and grandpa’s death – all within a year’s time. I learned that nothing is a sure thing, someone you love can be ripped out of your life and your whole foundation shaken, your world as you know it can totally change and things can end. But on the positive side, I learned I’m strong enough to survive whatever is thrown at me.

4) If you could give "the perfect gift" to someone, regardless of cost/availability/practicality, what would you give and to whom?

Wow, this is a hard one. ???? I think probably for SH and I to take my best girl, Lena, on a fun (and loooong) vacation to thank her for all that she’s done for us, and especially for me, over the years. She has been by my side through all my shit, listening, counseling, and cheering me up when needed. She is the definition of a best friend. And of course I’d throw in her very own Sheldon geek-type guy for her extra special companion! ;)

5) What color is your bedroom (or the color you would *like* it to be) and why did you choose it?

Oddly enough, the color is called French Castle (it was painted well before our trip to Paris) and is a sort of dusty lavender color. It was selected to coordinate with the bedding for the spare bedroom before SH and I moved our bedroom downstairs after realizing that the climate was too difficult to control in the upstairs living area. I like the color since it’s a mild, soothing color. The funnest color I had in a bedroom though was at my first home that I bought on my own. It was a tiny post-war house in the Como Park area in St. Paul, with a decent sized kitchen and living room, a tiny bathroom and one tiny and one small bedroom (the small one is the one I moved into). I painted the walls a bold blue, sort of like the depths of the ocean or the deepest blue of the sky and the ceiling was painted yellow, like the warm glow of the sun. I had my black wrought iron canopy bed set up with the canopy rails (in the open, flat, square pattern) with a couple violet colored scarves draped over the canopy. I loved going to bed and waking up in that room - especially because it was mine!

Thanks for the questions, IG. Sorry it took so long! I know, I've been lame with the posting these days. There just seems to be so much going on and time is flying by, know what I mean? Ugh. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to write about soon. Something's gotta happen, right?

Conehead vs. Dogula

I keep fluctuating between having a good idea for commentary on this blog and not really having anything to say - nothing of interest anyway. Basically I'm trying to get myself geared up to kick ass on another project at work to help propel me to the next promotion and get through the usual holiday shit so my life can be back to normal and Lena and I can get back on track with our training for the next 5K. Which reminds me, I meant to search for a 5K in the metro area sometime this spring. I've been meaning to do that for a few weeks now so let's see if I can actually remember to do it before I log off this evening.

There has been some recent "excitement" in our part of the world. First, I finally managed to get my ass in gear and take care of a little piece of personal business - at work of course - on Monday.

I called the vet to get Tas' annual exam scheduled and to get Greta's spay set up. Well, it so happened that they had an opening Tues. morning for surgery, so I went ahead and scheduled it. We decided to have her micro-chipped while she was out too since SH really wanted that done. AND it was FIVE dollars cheaper to do it while she was already under for surgery (they do that as incentive to have it done), which really put a dent in the FIVE HUNDRED dollar total bill! Well, we did opt for the pre-op blood work to check her clotting factor along with a couple other things to be on the safe side and she was due for a few other final vaccinations, so it wasn't just the spay that cost that much. Still, it was a bit of a shock. But I digress - so I drop her off Tues. morning for her girlie surgery. As expected, they need to weigh her, which I was hoping for anyway since the last time she was weighed was when she was about 6 months old and was about 67 lbs at the time. Big brother Shilo was 72 lbs. So now she's a little over 8 months and when she gets on the scale it does the bouncing back and forth 70 - 94 - 83 - 90 etc. It finally stops (roughly) at 89.4. Yup, our little Fat Girl really is FAT! OK, she's more "girthy" than anything. She outweighs her brother by almost 20 lbs and I don't think she's quite done growing yet at 8 1/2 months! WOW!

She came out of surgery just fine and we picked her up Wed. afternoon. As we expected - and somewhat sadistically hoped for - she donned the plastic cone (or the Elizabethan collar, as a fellow cat shelter lady called it). We tried our best not to laugh at her outright, settled up the bill, got our instructions for pain meds, suture monitoring, etc. and SH led her out the door. After listening to the vet tech explain to us how it will probably take her a couple days or so to get used to maneuvering with the collar on, what does she do? On the way out of the vet clinic - WHAM! She runs smack into the metal frame doorway, creating a large fracture down the side of the cone. So I go BACK into the clinic, wait a couple MORE minutes for a free tech to come out and ask if I could possibly have another cone because my gifted dog managed to nearly destroy the other one on the way out the door. Luckily the tech just laughed, said sure and to hang on a minute while she went and got ANOTHER one.

We tried to hold out as long as possible with that first cone but, of course, within approximately 1 hour of arriving home, that one was just about hanging off her collar. So we had to break out #2. Here are some fun pics of her trying to navigate the house with the cone head.

Leaving the bedroom (pay no attention to the floor in serious need of refinishing :o):


Trying to get out the back door to go potty:


I love this one. "How the F*CK am I supposed to eat?!


Trying to maintain a shred of dignity by acting casual, as if nothing is different:

Look at the poor pathetic baby with the crazy-milky eyes (they're actually brown):

So Thurs. night comes and I'm alone with Conehead because SH is working an overnight shift. Has anyone out there had to deal with a fairly rambunctious LARGE dog who needs to have a frickin' cone on her head? Let me tell you, it was a real treat! If she wasn't ignoring my commands the first 30 times or so, she was banging, scraping, slamming or bouncing that fucking cone off the wall, bed, nightstand, her kennel - really any object she could find - and LOUDLY. After a while of that and my resulting screaming at her to just lie down, I was finally able to get to sleep, only to be awoken a few times over the course of the night with more of the same. Which, incidently, contributed to the demise of cone #2. By morning the cone was literally hanging off of her collar with no way to secure it in a remotely functionable fashion. I would have called in a little late at work and ran to the vet or Pet.co/Pet.smart to pick up another cone but I couldn't remember for sure if I had a morning meeting and frankly I was so close to my breaking point that I needed to just get the hell out of there and away from her before I wound up smacking her silly. After that I can really see how shaken baby syndrome happens. Luckily SH was able to make the run after he got off work and was actually able to do a little research and found the "Co.mfy Cone" which is basically the same deal but it is made with nylon fabric over a foam structure that velcros shut so #1 It won't break apart when slammed into walls, doorways, etc. and #2 it's got to be a bit more comfortable and almost act like a pillow when she rests. So now this is what she's sporting:

Unfortunately, it's hard to see in these pics but it almost looks like a flower (like a tulip) and her head is a giant stamen. I asked SH if they came in other colors like red or purple but he said they only came in black. Now she looks like Dogula. She vants to suck your blooood. It's also trimmed in reflective material so when Dogula goes out searching for victims after dark she's still safely visible!

We also made holiday cookies as part of SH's birthday celebration. (He's been wanting to make cookies. Isn't that cute?) More on the birthday festivities later - this post is already really long and I need to do more searching on 5Ks. But I will leave you with a photo of the family room progress as mentioned previously (even this section is not done yet) and a sneak peak at what Christmas cookies look like in the Gumby-SH household. Later! :)




And yes, it was two adults that decorated these cookies...