Reward!

I have had a day of running around doing stuff for vehicles. First I had to take the 4Runner in this morning to get a new windshield. A rock hit the windshield when we were on our way home from the Outer Banks last weekend and by the time we got home, there was a crack halfway across the windshield. It probably would not have passed inspection like that, so I went ahead and had it fixed now since I probably won’t have as much time to deal with it once school starts.

Then I went to Lowes to find something to put under my center stand for my scooter. Now that it’s hot, the stand is sinking into the asphalt of my apartment parking lot. I don’t care about the holes I’m putting in the parking lot, but I am worried that my scoot will end up falling over (since it doesn’t seem to sink symmetrically) and once it does sink in, I have a hard time getting it to roll off the stand when I want to go ride. So I found a 2×2 piece of plywood to slide under the scoot. Hopefully that will work and distribute the weight over the asphalt enough to prevent sinking.

Finally, I took the 4Runner in for an oil change. After all that, I decided to reward myself and go to Whole Foods for a cupcake. I have been eyeing their cupcakes and since I wasn’t far from the new store, I decided to get one. It was chocolate raspberry and it was delicious.

Another thing I have discovered I love is almond butter. It’s a nice change from peanut butter and at Whole Foods, I can get it from the bulk section for quite a bit cheaper than the branded versions.

I wish the cheaper grocery store in town had a bulk food section. Whole Foods is super nice, but it is expensive, so I have to be selective about what I get there.

I also got a watermelon. I love summer because of watermelon. So refreshing when it is super hot outside!

Sleeping Positions

When David is not visiting, here is our normal sleeping arrangement.

It works pretty well and everypup and person has space.

At some point in the night, I touch Kat, she gets mad and moves.

I think she sleeps on the floor for part of it but eventually ends up on the pillows at the top of the bed. She is very much a princess and gets quite angry if she is kicked by a foot under blankets. She doesn’t care so much if the foot is on top of the blankets. Very strange.

I’m not sure if you can really tell from the previous illustration, but Kat is very close to me. Let’s take a closer look.

This is how I wake up every morning. Kat’s face is right in my face. As soon as I open my eyes, she starts licking. I would really like to know how long she sits there and stares at me, just waiting for me to open my eyes. I guess I should appreciate how polite she is to not try to lick me until after I’m awake.

I had no choice

We went to Old Navy this weekend to look for some shirts for David. Of course I just took a quick spin through the ladies side of the store and found this super cute outfit for a total of $20! (Gotta love $2 tank tops!) I don’t normally buy pants that are so colorful but they were cheap so I went for it.

(Yes, we got David some new stuff and also found a cool ball for Kat that lights up when it hits the floor. Wilbur loves it.)

Rub a dub dub, Steve in a tub

Yesterday I was in the bathroom, pulling my hair back to go run and Steve came in, climbed in the tub, then turned around and started barking at me.

I have no idea what he was doing. He has a thing for being crazy in the bathroom before runs, such as when he jumped on the vanity in our old house when I was fixing my hair too.

Crazy Steve.

The squirrel-free path

During yesterday’s run, I was just not feeling it. I wonder what makes the difference when somedays I feel like I could run for a long time and then other days, like yesterday, I am ready to go home after five minutes. I didn’t go home though and we went about 5.5 miles, a little further than I had planned.

The reason we went further is that I found a new detour to stay away from this one spot where there are always a lot of squirrels. If someone tracked all of my paths around the city, I’m sure someone would wonder why I go the way I go and it all boils down to the fact that I am trying to avoid squirrels. It was so much easier during finals when Steve and Kat were at David’s because I could run any path I wanted! A further complication for tomorrow is that I saw a dead snake in the street yesterday, so I’ll have to avoid that area for a few days until I am sure it is gone because I might die if Steve or Kat picked up a snake. Like literally. I. Might. Die.

(A side note about snakes: when I took Wilbur to the vet a couple weeks ago, I asked the vet how fast I needed to get Steve or Kat to the vet if they got bit by a venomous snake. I felt much better when she said that as long as I got them to the vet as soon as I could, they would likely still be okay even if we were out hiking and had to get back to the car and then drive back to a vet. She said she had only seen one dog die from a snake bite and it was a tiny dog. But then she said that three dogs were bit one night last summer by copperheads on one trail in town! I will not be going down there now. I took Steve and Kat walking on that trail during the winter. Now that I know there are copperheads over there, I might only go there in the winter!)

In my quest over the last few months to lose the 15-20 pounds I gained during the failed Seattle Experiment, I have basically stopped eating meat, which means I am eating a lot more vegetables. I am also clumsy, so I often drop things in the kitchen. Usually Steve helps me clean up dropped items, but I discovered that he is not a fan of cucumber. The funny thing was that every time I picked up the cucumber slice, he took it back from my hand to the living room. Eventually I traded him a cookie for the cucumber so I could throw it away.

I made this recipe last night. It needed something else, more spice, but it would be great for the summer if I had a garden.

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful husband who is a good dad to Steve, Kat, and Wilbur. I wouldn’t even have Steve and Kat without David. What would I do if I had a house without fur?


Happy Father’s Day to my dad. I couldn’t ask for a better dad and one who has given me so many great memories and turned me into such a well-rounded person (along with my mom, of course). Now that I am an adult and have met so many other people, I realize how lucky I was to have a dad who supported all of my crazy interests and always made me feel like I could do whatever I wanted and he took an interest in anything that interested me. I’m sure he didn’t always want to visit every space related museum in the USA or fly to Florida to look at a college or any of my other crazy ideas, but he did it and I now know that I am much better off for it.

 

Checking out the Volcano

A couple weeks ago when we went camping, the goal was to go to Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens.  Of course, it rained the entire weekend and when we got to the Johnston Ridge viewpoint of Mt. St. Helens, we saw this.

Not exactly awesome. There was also a bike race going up the mountain and I felt so bad for the riders, in the rain, riding uphill like that. They were definitely dedicated. I certainly wouldn’t have done it.

Last weekend it was nice, so we decided to make a day trip and go back to St. Helens. It was much better this time. Still a few clouds but we could actually see the mountain/volcano. This is my favorite picture that I took.

I also messed around with creating some panoramas. They turned out okay.

Here’s a couple pictures of David and me. I wish I had taken my camera bag off, but I never think about stuff like that until I look at the pictures on my computer.

At the Johnston Ridge visitors center, they showed a movie that had some pretty neat animations of what happened during the May 18, 1980 eruption. It is amazing how quickly the landscape can change.

On the way home, we stopped at Cabelas, I guess going to Mt. St. Helens provides a good excuse to go to the only Cabelas in the area. David wanted to look for a new holster (because apparently he needs three holsters for one gun??) but he ended up not buying anything and I got a pair of cute flip-flops and some watermelon licorice. I guess it was a successful trip after all.

Steve makes me laugh

Steve likes to eat just about anything.  When I snack on carrots, Steve is always waiting, hoping that I will share at least one carrot with him.  I usually do because watching him chew makes me laugh everytime.  Steve rarely chews anything but when it comes to carrots, he chews and chews and chews!

In case you all need a giggle, here’s Steve chewing carrots.

Shoe Second Opinions

I ordered some shoes online from DSW because they sent me a $20 coupon. I had been looking for some sneakers that were not running shoes and would be good for just doing errands and stuff. I thought these shoes were cute and since they were also purple, my favorite color, all the better.

Then the shoes arrived and I can’t figure out if I like them.  I think they look weird on my feet.  David couldn’t figure out what I was talking about since this is the view he sees of the shoes.

This is the view I see.

Is it just me or do these shoes look weird? I can’t decide if I should keep them. Second opinions needed.

Steven Oliver, Certified Good Boy

Steve took his CGC test on Thursday.  I was super nervous about it, but I tried really hard not to let Steve pick up on it.  We practiced separations all week and it seemed like he was just getting worse every time we did it.  When I left the house to take Steve to the test, I told David I thought it would be 50/50 whether he would pass.

The test site was just two miles from the house, so we biked over there so Steve would be tired.  We met up with his teacher for some last minute practice.  Then I ran Steve around for the remainder of the time before the test started.  I did not want him to get one bit un-tired.  (Not sure if that’s a word.)

Steve took his test first.  The other dog there was with her dad and when the examiner said, “Okay, let’s have Steve come over here”, she looked right at the other dog’s dad.  She thought Steve was the dad, not the dog.  It was funny.

First we did the human/human greeting.  Steve was good and sat and waited.  Then for the human/dog greeting, he was very good and stayed on all fours and just stood there while the examiner patted him on the head.  He also did great for the grooming/examination test item, although he kept trying to shake the examiner’s hand.  Next up was loose-leash walking.  We ended up doing the course twice.  Steve was decent the first time, but at the end, he really started to get in the groove and when we finished, the examiner just said, “go around again” so we did and he was perfect.  I kind of wonder if we did it the second time just because the examiner was kind of border-line on whether to pass him and could see that he was just starting to perform.  He did find with walking through a crowd and also the distractions.  He’s not afraid of noises, so he didn’t even react.  For the stay test item, he did a better stay than he’d done in all of our practice.  That could be because I had been doing much longer stays when we were practicing.  During practice, when I walked back to him, he typically broke his stay and moved from a down to a sit.  Personally, as long as he is in the same spot, I don’t care if he changes position, but that’s not technically staying, so Steve and I had been practicing where he had to stay in a down, which he did great on the test.  During the come test item, Steve came half-way, sniffed around for a bit (which felt like an eternity) and then came the rest of the way.  Whew!  He still passed that.

Finally we were down to just the three-minute separation.  I left him outside with the examiner and went into the training tent.  For the first couple minutes, he just made a random noise, here or there, but then for the last minute, he was very noisy.  When I went back to the examiner to get him, she said that for a while, she was on the fence about passing him, but then it just went over the edge and so she failed him.  However, she said that since he had passed everything else, we could try again after the other dog did her test.

While the other dog was testing, I took Steve into the training tent and let him completely sniff it out.  I thought maybe he thought there was something really cool inside and that’s why it bugged him so much that I was going in there without him.  Who knows what goes on in his furry little head?

The other dog passed on her first try, so Steve was up again.  This time he was completely quiet during the separation.  It was great.  I was/am so proud of him.

Kat takes her CGC test the first Sunday of June.  I think she’ll be okay too, but we are going to start practicing her separations now because I know she will have a problem with them too.  I call her “shadow” sometimes because she follows me everywhere.

Lest you think Steve is now a perfect boy, he’s still a Siberian.  The night after he passed his CGC test, he woke us up at 3AM because there was an opossum in the backyard and Steve went crazy.  Finally I took him upstairs where he couldn’t see outside and David relocated the opossum to the front yard.  We hoped that it would stay away, but it didn’t and S&K ended up killing it (for real this time) on Saturday.  So Steve is not always a canine good citizen!