Oddly Quiet

This crazy beast has been at the vet's office since Thursday morning to get spayed...it's been oddly quiet.

It's so strange how there can still be three dogs here, but things are slower, calmer...way more silent. Lucy's body and personality encompass a lot of space. She's not that large in size--but she's constantly moving, playing, investigating or jumping up on me while I sit at the computer while her tail thumps loudly against the side of my desk. Unless everyone is sleepy/sleeping on the sofa, there's some sort of traveling or noise.

Lucy is the one who has a little bit of personality and characteristics of all the others. If dogs were compared to children---in which they often are in my circle of friends---each one here has a certain role they fulfill in the house just like children.

The one who is going to do something to get on your nerves most often--Brinkley (Julie would prob. add Casey to that as well!)
The one who makes all A's and is called the teacher's pet--Nikki
The one who paints his room black and writes emo poems at night--Casey

Barely ever listens to what you are saying--Brinkley...and Casey
Acts offended even if you just brush up against him the wrong way--Casey
The tattler--Nikki (she really lets you know when they are into something)
The neurotic, nervous-nelly--Brinkley
Will follow you to the bathroom to converse while you're trying to "go"--Nikki
Grandma's favorite--Casey (he's so nice to her!) ;)
Hides and pouts when Grandma babysits and Mom leaves--Nikki
Has to be the first one in line all the time--Brinkley

The one who you'd rather take with you someplace--Nikki
Most likely to cuddle up next to you on the sofa--Nikki
Protects you at all costs--Casey
The most fun to play with outside--Brinkley

Gets invited to all the other kid's birthday parties because he's just THAT popular--Brinkley
Gets the most angry at you and tells all his friends how unfair you are and how much he hates you--Casey
Will do something just despite you but gets hurt if you're mad at him--Brinkley
Loves you so much even though you are imperfect--Nikki

But Lucy has a little bit of every single one of those qualities in her, depending on the moment or day.
I think that's why it feels so empty now when she's not here. All those qualities and abilities, they take up a lot of space. We're fine with that.


**And, she's on her way home!!**

Happy First Birthday Lucy!

We don't actually know the legit date for Lucy's birth, but when we took her to the vet, they said it was around this time, so we decided what better than to get to "choose" for her birthday to be on Valentine's Day...a sweet day, easy to remember, for a sweet baby girl! :)
You gotta love Lucy!

A Strange Week

Discovered Casey had a smallish cave on the side of his mouth, full of funk...$101.00 later found out he had gingivitis and a "hot spot" that required meds.

That same day something cool happened---while waiting on my next class at my door a visitor to the school who was there to give a special test to fourth graders asked me how to get back to the office. She was kind of far away from me, but there was something VERY familiar about her. She looked like my former 2nd/4th grade teacher, Ms. Sheets. I couldn't let the moment pass me up without finding out if it really was her or not or if my mind was going loco. So, even though I was nervous about tracking a person down all the way up to the office and then feeling really stupid once it wasn't her, I had to do it. Walked in and saw her up close and immediately knew it WAS HER. Craziness. Haven't seen her since I was maybe in middle or high school. She is one of my top four favorite teachers ever! She taught me in 2nd grade and then moved up to 4th so I had her for a subject or two then as well. She and my mom became buds and when mom had to work late, I would sometimes spend the night at her house...now this was back in the 80's when things were so much simpler.

I say that because I remember that her daughter was about one or two years younger than me and one night we didn't want to stay in her room because we were scared for some reason...so we slept in the bed with my teacher (just her, no husband at the time!) Now these days, that would NEVER happen----you are trained to be scared out of your mind to even drive a student somewhere for fear of a lawsuit...so thinking back on how that all took place back then and was completely acceptable, seems so strange now to think of how very, very different times are.

It was so great seeing her and getting some nice hugs. The next craziest thing was how she said Mrs. Bassett was there at my school too. That's another great teacher of mine that taught me Spanish I and II in high school...went down to visit her and that was equally as surreal and awesome. It's certainly not every day that--that sort of thing happens. I was stoked.

Came home to see Casey and Bean home safely from work/vet visit. Things were going well. Pups had dinner, time for a potty break outside while Bean started turkey burgers and I was in this very spot doing some work.

Heard a loud *yelp* outside that sounded like Lucy, called them all back in and didn't think anything of it. A few minutes later Lucy came to get my attention and I was pushing her off of me when I looked down and HOLY LORD...that dog's head was the size of a balloon almost. Whoa. Scary.

Her eyes were swollen, her normally floppy, droopy mouth and lips were now busting out the side of her face, crazy puffy and huge.

Quickly gave her a little liquid Benadryl and called Bomar to get emergency vet's number in Covington. Didn't want to take any chances at all, so took the turkey burgers off the stove, grabbed some crackers and Sierra Mist, the GPS navigator and jumped in the car. Got there 30 minutes later and the swelling had already gone down a lot, but not completely. After an examination, more medicine and time to make sure she wouldn't get worse, we were out of there. An allergic reaction to what must have been a bite or sting. There at 7:30pm and home at 10:30pm and $90.00 more gone. One exhausted, still semi-swollen, sore pup and two very weary, exhausted humans finished up the dinner that wouldn't be eaten until lunch the next day and joined three other tired pups for much needed rest.

It's been a strange week for sure. The vet tech guy said I should have gotten pics...I will be honest and say that I totally thought about it, but just couldn't justify taking the time for pics of her craziness while being that worried at the same time. He also asked if she was Lucy from "I love Lucy" or some other one that I can't remember now...we said neither.

So just Lucy, without the drama...

Lucy with quotes

Been a while for Lucy pictures and some good quotes. By the way, these pictures of Lucy ONLY happen when she is sleepy! You can see towards the end that she started to fall asleep.


"Everyone's afraid of something, that's how you know you care about things, when you're afraid you'll lose them." -via The Bodyguard.

"And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too." -Khaled Hosseini on The Kite Runner (GREAT movie)

"Isn't it ironic? We ignore the ones who adore us, adore the ones who ignore us, love the ones who hurt us, and hurt the ones that love us." --via Just Lia's blog.
That is so true---I get so disheartened watching people fawning all over the people who couldn't care less about them, the people that give them just enough attention to keep them around.

"But some emotions don't make a lot of noise. It's hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint- like a heartbeat. And pure love--why some days it's so quiet, you don't even know it's there." -unknown

"All human beings should try and learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why." --James Thurber

Shit Drawers

Yes, I totally just titled a blog post "Shit Drawers" because that is what this post is about...if it offends, you might want to go elsewhere before I have to get all Mr. Miyagi on your ass.

So sweet Lucy isn't quite a baby anymore but more like a young lady...she got what every girl waits for--to feel like they have become a big girl one of the older, wiser girls...the monthly visitor, the Aunt Flo. And let me tell you, you can say what you want about dogs not being much like people, etc...but there is a definite likeness in the fact that homegirl was MOODY and PISSY right before this blessed event took place. All of a sudden we were noticing that she was quiet, kept off to herself and seemed sad. We wondered what was wrong. Then a few days later she was practically biting Brinkley's head off because she wanted HIS bone that he already had. We wondered what was wrong. Then when the blood came we didn't have to wonder anymore. And goodness gracious, we can't wait for her body to get back to normal so that she can have a magical little surgery to make it all go away!

It has been exhausting. The doggie diapers didn't work because they wouldn't stay up on her hips...so we gave her what we like to call her BIG GIRL PANTIES.

It's completely sick and wrong. We know this. But what are you gonna do?! She can't drip all over the house. I had some old skinny, college girl panties...geez...I'm talking about MY own....you know ones you like a whole lot and they still look new but for whatever reason like maybe they rode into my unknowns more than I liked or my ass hung out of them after a few years...in the back of my drawer that I just hadn't been able to part with. They are good panties after all, just not particularly for me and who ya gonna give your old but new panties too?!

Anyway, we put them on her, cut a tail hole, cinched them up with a safety pin and TADA...BIG GIRL PANTIES for Lucy.

Now she can look like a little white trash red-neck child like my old neighbor's kids in Valdosta---when she'd let them play in the front yard in their panties only (on a paved, busy street) and then would use the lice comb on them on the front porch because they couldn't go back to school until the "all clear" was given AGAIN.

So the invention worked great and we joked about how awful it would be if we ever forgot to leave the panties on when it was time to go potty outside. Hmm...foreshadowing. Yesterday was a sucky sucky day--see post below this one---and the perfect time for shit drawers.

I was preparing our plates for dinner and the dogs had just eaten so it was a potty break time---a time usually for a good after dinner poop. Julie rushed the dogs out, and forgot about BIG GIRL PANTIES.

When we called the dogs back in, Lucy for some reason didn't run right back up to the door right away. When we saw her, we immediately noticed the heavy, sagging panties...in the back region. Yikes. We are asses. We made our sweet dog get real life shit drawers. This was the icing on the cake of the day. Yet though it was so pitiful and Julie felt so guilty---it was still laughable. I had to laugh out loud. The fact that she sat down because of being afraid of her heavy panties...made the mess more interesting to clean up.

Lucy's fine and I'm glad she won't be going on Dr. Phil anytime soon to rat us out. It's a story that won't soon be forgotten and got some laughter that was so hard tears came from us and friends we relayed the story to.

Look how's she's looking at me like she knows it's just not right:


Very wrong! And I'm not so sure if lime green is her color:

Nikki is not at all sure about Lucy's issues:

She's completely embarrassed for Lucy and has to turn away:

So I'm wearing some panties, what of?!

The Weekend

So...yeah the week is almost over and I'm just getting around to covering the weekend post! Oops! :) It was a wonderful weekend that involved some serious cleaning because of muddy dogs from all the rain we had and a lot of vegging out too. We spent some time playing with the dogs and got to hang out with Sarah on Sunday. All very fabulous!

Here are some pics Julie took of me and the little sausage...look how muscular this dog has turned out to be! We're amazed at how lean she is and when she runs and jumps outside her agility quite a sight.








She cracks me up when she does the sneaky, squinty/slanty eyed look!




And then there's some more pics of Julie's outside adventures...I swear if she ever feels the desire, she could walk right into a National Geographic job! :) If we had a macro lens these shots would rock even more! You would be able to count the "hairs" on the grasshoppers legs and who wouldn't have fun doing that?! ha!
After applying some lomography action:




Ah...Grasshopper!

The Girls

I can't even believe how much Lucy has grown!

Missed Her Ride To Bloomingdale's

This evening when Julie was letting the dogs in from outside a butterfly whizzed by her head flying into the house. It instantly made me think of "You've Got Mail" where Meg Ryan talks about the butterfly flying into the subway car and how she probably was going to Bloomingdale's to buy a hat, which will be a mistake.

"Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today, I saw one. It got on at 42nd, and off at 59th, where, I assume it was going to Bloomingdale's to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake - as almost all hats are."

One of the many quotes I love from that movie---not quite as much as a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils...but almost.

I assume since dinner was cooking that our butterfly wanted to be invited in for dinner and since we were so rude as to not invite her, she took it upon herself just to join us anyway. This was definitely a mistake, because she almost became a treat for Lucy.

Lennye Needs Some Smiles

So Lennye is in what we all know as the "this is the last few days of my summer vacation before going back to work" slump/depression...so I figured she needs a little of this...this always makes her smile. I hope these give you a smile!

Behold: The Cuteness!

The Weekend

On Saturday we went to Atlanta to visit Sarah and shop at a few new places we had never been. The shops were cool and were places that we'd definitely go to again. We also took Lucy with us because as noted in an earlier post, some socialization with anyone besides the two of us, was much needed.

All four of us went to Piedmont Park and we actually got Sarah to go to the dog park! :) There were a lot of big dogs in there and Lucy (unintentionally) made friends with a rather large dog with all of his reproductive parts intact...so since she hasn't been spayed yet, there was no way we were letting her off the leash. You should have seen the three of us there, not ready to let the baby go out on her own just yet...watching at the edge of all the chaos and play, it was funny to me!

(ps...sorry I was sitting so awfully, I think maybe I didn't want my bare legs to touch the grass maybe?!)
It was hot and humid at the park and something was biting all of us, so we went and hung out on Sarah's porch and chatted for a while. We had a nice visit and Lucy was so worn out from all the newness that she slept the entire 45 minute trip back home!

Sunday we went down the road to High Falls State Park...

Lovely Lucy

Went away on vacation and it seems like it's been forever since I did a post dedicated to the Cuteness! I know it hasn't been that long...but we're overdue here people! So, photos from yesterday...









She looks straight up crazy in these two!