I need more practice

So I said I was going to write about the dog. Well he's stopped doing really stupid/ funny things (that require a whole blog post) hence no recent blog posts. So this one's on me.

The hubby and I have started taking ballroom dance lessons. (Have I mentioned that? I can't remember.) Well, we have for about 2 months now. Yesterday the studio had a "Showcase" or what I like to call "A grown up dance recital where grown ups don't want to go around telling other grown ups they have a 'dance recital'."  I admit, "dance recital" does conjure images of pink tutus.

The morning session (yes, this was a 2-parter) had all the students dancing. You dance with other couples of your skill level to dances you previously chose. I danced to the rumba, foxtrot and tango. They have all beginners dance with pros so I danced with Vlad. The hubby was out of town at his first regatta so he missed all this fun.

Our normal instructor is Natasha. Picking up on the theme?  ALL the instructors are Russia. (One is from Moldova. close enough.) Hey, they're all fantastic dancers!!!  It's GREAT!

The evening part was a gala where the some of the amateurs danced by with their partners alone on the floor, a true showcase, (like my new-found friend The Young 'un) and the pros. It was really exciting to see the pros dance (and extremely humbling.)

I admit, I really, REALLY hate getting my picture taken. I'm not going to break it down psychosis, by psychosis but I'm sure you or someone you know can relate. So recently I decided I just needed to get over it, especially since we have not one, but TWO family weddings this summer and there will be lots of snapping going on.

One of the things I noticed is I really do the "super-dooper smile" for photos. While this is great when laughing at a friend's joke it is not always the best camera pose. Turns out I have married into one of the photogenic families I have ever met. (insert mix of admiration and jealously here.) So I have been studying their photos. (yes, really) to see how they get that perfected look. I've been concentrating on my brother-in-law since he's an actor, has amazing head shots and spends, by far, the most time in front of a camera.

My conclusion, aside from the fact that their whole family is just naturally camera-ready, is that my BIL doesn't always go for the biggest smile he can muster. It is a canned smile. But damned if it doesn't look good!

So I've been practicing a smile that I think is more camera-appropriate. Not a big cheesy grin, but one that still shows a little teeth, but not too much. Don't want to be an open book. I want to play a little coy. ; )

Last night's gala was my first chance to use my practiced smile. The Young'un's boyfriend took a picture of the two of us and one of the instructors. We were kind of laughing as we setting up the shot and I was trying to get my practiced face on. Annnnnd, this is what came out:

"Extremely confused and disoriented" was not the look I was going for, just for the record. But hey, it was my first attempt. And at least I didn't ruin wedding photos with this look. yet. Clearly more practiced is needed. (In my defense my 'look' was not entirely set up when the camera went off. I just need to figure out how to hit my mark faster. Yeah, that's it. Hit it faster...)

BTW - The instructor, Roman from Moldova, and The Young'un did a fantastic solo together during the evening!!!)  And yes, y'all have seen this dress on me a million times on FB. It's one of 5 I own. I suppose I could get a new one.... I don't know. Not sure I'm ready to brave the mall again.



No, really....

We have a king size bed. And a duvet and duvet cover, not to be mistaken for a comforter. I'm too fancy for a common "comforter". "DO-vay".  (I don't want you sounding like country folk in front of your friends....)

*snort* I didn't think you'd buy that but I had to try.

I do have a duvet with a cover but it's purely for functional purposes. When a cat pukes on it or when when the animal hair gets too much to bear I can pull it off and throw it in the washer. Really, I would have given my left arm to be able to walk in and pick out a pretty bedroom-in-a-bag but functional reigns supreme in my house. (do you know how hard it is to find a duvet cover??)

The problem with this - sometimes it's more expensive than it's cracked up to be. Which is why I wish I'd gone the bedroom-bag route on more than one occasion. But then again if I'd done that I'd probably have gone through 7+ bags by now. (Cat puke usually stains. Just sayin')

Note: The upside is that I'd never get bored with my bedroom decor.

Have you ever tried to wrestle a king size duvet into a king size duvet cover? If you have, by yourself, you know what a pain in the ass it is.  If you haven't, well, take my word for it. Imagine trying to take an uncooked, king bed-size piece of wonton wrapper and carefully, without tearing it, feed it into a giant sandwich bag. Oh, and the corners have to line up and everything. You just can't shove it in there.

Ok, not the best analogy but there's really nothing like stuffing a real duvet into a cover.  Sorry.

Recently I accidentally came up with a better idea. While the hubby was out of town the cat puked on the cover - again - and it was in the washer overnight. I did not want any animals on the naked duvet so I took an extra sheet from our guest bed (full size mattress) and draped it over my bed to cover as much of the naked duvet as possible. The next morning I realized how genius this was. The sheet covered the duvet (assuming it was the correct sheet size) but I could whip it off easily, throw it in the wash and spread it back out soooo easily. And by myself!!!

EUREKA!

What an epiphany! Our current cover is chocolate brown and our new dog sheds like gangbusters! and it's white. You can see my problem. I figured this was my chance to change up the color, or at least move to a pattern that camouflages the hair better.

I started looking for king size flat sheets. But I could not find what I wanted and I was not going to spend a fortune to buy a sheet "set" for sheets that I never intended to use.

What's a girl to do??

Make her own!!

Luckily I am the proud owner of a basic-medium function Singer sewing machine. The world is my craft store.

No, really, I do own a sewing machine.

I went to JoAnn Fabric, bought me some snazzy fabric - 500% better than any sheets I could have found and made me my own "coverlet". (note - to anyone interested in doing this I just looked for cotton quilting fabric.  Lots of patterns and a good weight. Not too heavy, not too light.)

The great upside to doing it yourself is when I get sick of it or I want a seasonal change I can swap it out. Cheaply.  The downside is it is a bit wieldy to work with so much fabric for a king size bed.  But I managed. And even with just scissors and not the spiffy sewing-specific roller cutter thingys and other specialized tools. Disclaimer - My final product may or may not be perfectly square (although it turned out a HELL of a lot better than I anticipated) and the edges are not ruler straight. But good enough for government work.

Once I reacquainted myself with my sewing machine I got to work. Since I was working with so much fabric I tried to take advantage of as many "markers" as possible to make my job easier. For example fabric has a nature color stripe on one side with dye circles. I took that edge, and pinned those together to ensure I had one straight edge and made my center seam. I turned the fabric over when done only to realize that the pattern was directional (I didnt' realize that before) and so the main pattern on the left side was oriented up and on the right side it was oriented upside down.

I became very familiar with the seam ripper....

Note - always but a good seam ripper.  I need to go back and buy a better one because a cheap one stinks.

Once oriented correctly I did the whole center seam again. I was so proud!  My stitches looked good!

I flipped it over to admire my handiwork.  EEK!





In case you don't sew - the back isn't supposed to look like that. It's supposed to look like the front...  It turns out during my previous hiatus, in which I was seam ripping, my thread came undone in my machine and was not threaded properly. Sooo, back to seam ripping!!!

Ries decided to keep me company.



When it was all said and done I had a 77 x 81" square to cover my bed.  I even over estimated by 1" just in case....



Yeah, that white thing is my duvet. So my "cover" isn't exactly covering it.... I think it's fair to say I got the dimensions wrong.  Or rather, the website gave me the wrong dimensions.... "King Size Linen Dimensions" apparently is really just "King Size Bed Dimensions".

Ok, so I proved the theory of the duvet coverlet. But the testing phase still needs some minor tweaking. 

Oh, and Indy's training is actually improving!  Starting to look up!!!

Pinned by a giant

Through all my frustrations and grumbling we got to training last night only to have the trainer and other people in the class comment to me how much better behaved Indy was!!  YAY!!!!

Even with all the distractions of the other dogs he was generally doing all the commands well!

Double YAY!!!

Did I mention he's put on FOUR pounds in the 2.5 weeks we've had him? I think I need to cut down on his meals since we're going through so many treats during training time....

There is one really funny thing that happens at training and unfortunately since it happens to ME I am unable to take a picture of it to show you. So you will have to use your imagination.

We each have stools we use that are about 16 - 18" high. Remember, I have a tall dog. The tallest, by far, in the class. To try and keep Indy calm while we're listening to the trainer I scratch his butt so he instinctively positions himself between my legs.  What I don't think everyone else in the class realizes is that he's actually trying to SIT on my lap. 

Really.

He's tried to raise a foot to my thigh. I'm a little to high so that didn't work.
He's just rested his rump on my thigh. Sometimes that works but my thigh is still to high.
Last night he even tried to put a butt cheek up on an empty stool beside me. (He only managed to move it a little and make it squeak. I think people just thought he bumped up against it.)
His preferred method, apparently, is to position himself so my knee is underneath his hips and rest just enough so I take the weight off his back legs.

This cracks me up because I know what he's doing.  But because of his perfect height to my lap height I'm not sure anyone else in the class can tell he's actually SITTING ON ME.  I think it's funny and will laugh and pet him at seemingly random times during class and our classmates probably think I'm nuts-o.

But no, I just have a huge dog that wants on my lap.

Obedience by Butt

"Oooh, he's a smart dog! .... that's not always good..." was the ominous statement made by the dog trainer at the beginning of our first obedience class last week. At the beginning of the comment I was beaming! By the end I was scared shitless.

I already could tell Indy was a pretty smart dog.  I didn't expect training to be easy but I was hoping it would go relatively smoothly. After the first session last week I wasn't so sure. I have never trained a dog in my life, never mind that I've had 2 dogs. And I completely understand that 70% of training is training the human, not the dog. And boy do I need training!

Our trainer, Donna, is awesome!!! Even more awesome is that I found out later that she's dating KVeg's uncle who happens to be the manager of the store where we're taking the lessons. Jackpot!!!  Donna has a resume 15 pages long, she's confident and I just generally like her. I learned a lot from her that first night. I'm not sure Indy agreed. 

Donna "diagnosed" him with avoidance behavior - he knows exactly what I want him to do but refuses to do it. I say his name and he looks everywhere but at me. Shorthand for = he ignores me. (anyone with kids, does this sound familiar??) He also has "impulse control issues". He's an angel at home. Calm, collected. He does all the training drills perfectly! but add one minor distraction and he goes bonkers.

We learned the "watch me" and "sit" commands last week. Once we perfected them at home we were to continue by adding distractions. Indy did great at home and even did well in the backyard. We have more distractions that you think. The yards that butt up against ours all have dogs and Indy will run to the back of our yard, sit and whine if the other dogs are out. The other dogs bark. Our little angel only whines. : )

This weekend was fantastic weather so I asked KVeg to join me at a local State Park so I could add to Indy's distractions. I headed out with harness, leash and his favorite treats.

I gave him plenty of time to sniff around since it was new and exciting. We saw a few dogs already out and even saw a couple out walking their cat.

Yes. I said CAT. In a harness, on a leash.
It seemed as though the cat was accustomed to this. I wonder what the hubby would say if I suggested we add the three cats to our excursions....

When a group with a dog came from the trail out of the woods I tried to get Indy to sit and pay attention to me as the people passed about 3-4 meters away. No luck. Even the treat was not enticing enough for him to disregard the other dog. I was having such a hard time of it KVeg actually had to turn and walk away she was laughing so hard. (at me)

Ok, so that didn't go as planned. That's ok. We'll try again later. We headed down the trail. When no one was around I'd try again. Nope. Nuthin' The dog refused to stop sniffing and respond to anything I had to say.  You would have thought I was trying to feed him a rock, not a chunk of yummy treats.

But I persevered. Every now and then I would continue to try and get his attention to practice the commands. We made it around the circular trail without any success.

As soon as we walked in the door at the house I had him sit. He did it perfectly.

We have a lot to work on.

Our little "Angel"

Last year was hard. Last July, after 2 seizures in two weeks we decided Liam, our big lovable 12 year old Golden Retriever, had lived a full and happy life.  It was time for him spend the rest of time chasing squirrels in the sky.  In mid-September we had a month-long battle with Nikki, in and out of the vet. Every few days with a new, scary symptom. It was heart wrenching. In the end they realized she had had a stroke.  We had had enough of our 14 year old lab suffer.  Another terrible, terrible decision.

I swore I wouldn't get another dog.  Or if I did I'd wait years. I knew I wasn't ready because I'd tear up randomly thinking about Nikki and Liam. It didn't let up. I didn't let on to the hubby how upset I was, especially when months had passed and I still was a mess.

I think the worst part was the quietness.  After having 2 big dogs that snort and snore and always under foot (so you're constantly "Liam, move! Nikki, come!") it was unsettling to read early on a Saturday morning with three cats on my lap but not a peep in the background. (they're quiet purr-ers)

A few weeks ago I couldn't stand it. I'd wrestled with how easy our life would be with no dog. We didn't have to worry about being home at a certain time, We didn't have tot worry about going out of town "Who's going to watch the dog? Is the pet sitter available??"  If the hubby was out of town I wouldn't have to worry about running home to let a dog out.  But the more I thought about it the more I'd rather deal with those "impositions" than be dogless.

So I made the decision for us that we were going to get another dog. : )  I like big dogs. The hubby wanted one that wasn't so shaggy and hard to groom. We found a rescue that was a great dane/ hound mix!  He was perfect!

The hubby named him Indy.

He's about 2-3 years old. He's housebroken, (fantastic!! : ) knows a few basic commands, (when he wants to "remember"...) and he's very gentle and calm.  IN THE HOUSE.   When you get him outside around other dogs and/ or lots of people he goes bat-shit crazy!!!

This is why he and I are starting obedience training Wednesday night.  Oh, did I mention he doesn't come when called either??  And that when we took him to the vet he had a major ear infection so we get to start out our first two weeks torturing him with ear meds?? (no wonder he won't come when called...)

Over the weekend I happened to catch Indy in the neighbor's yard.  That's a problem because we have a FENCED IN YARD!!! Panic ensued inside our house as we raced outside to track him down. That was followed by the hubby going outside and "fixing" a few spots that apparently this monster of a guy could squeeze through.  (He's only 80 lbs - I call him my "mini dane" but he's tall.) 

This morning, before heading to work, I went to fetch him from the yard after his morning poo time. I couldn't find him.  At all.  Damn it!  He escaped again!  The "fixes" weren't "fixed" enough, apparently.  The problem now is that the hubby is out of town.  I was on my own.

After much wandering through the neighborhood, trudging through bushes, brambles, overgrown trees, ravines and underbrush I caught him. (See, doesn't come when called)  Luckily we had circled back around and were close enough I could walk him back to the house instead of back to my car (which I initially drove through the neighborhood trying to find him) because he was COVERED in mud. I shut him in the garage and retrieved my car from the other end of the development.  Gave me time to calm down because at this point I admit I was rethinking this new dog decision...

The local K-9 Wash-n-Go is closed on Mondays. (crap!) so Indy got a nice warm sponge bath in the garage (which he enjoyed waaay too much, if you ask me) before he was allowed back inside. I had to change my clothes and ended up at work 2 hours late.

I'm hoping, dispite this fiasco, he will become my hiking buddy, running friend (oh, he LOVES that.  that's another sotry for another day.) and I hope he will even go camping with us. But before we try any of that I need to be confident he'll come when called!!! 

Check back here for more Indy shenanigans. Because, unfortunately, I have a feeling there will be more to come.

My Confession

I have a confession.  I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. And if you haven't noticed I'm kinda growing up....

I'll admit that I'm jealous of people who have always known what they wanted to do with their life, who had a "calling".  Or people who, on purpose or accident, took a hobby and made a living out of it (even if it was just part time).

 I've never really known what I wanted to do with my life.  Actually that's not true. I always wanted to be an archaeologist and then an Egyptian physical anthropologist. But I quickly realized that definitely was a hobby-type interest, not a possible career-type passion. 

But of course how can one "do" their passion if they don't have a passion?!  So I've been spending time trying to find mine.  Because here's the rub -  I don't have one. Or at least not consciously.   I understand this is not an overnight process. But I'm very impatient. And I'm getting very sick of 160+ inches of winter snow (but thankfully Mother Nature must understand that I need a break while trying to discover myself and gave me a reprieve this winter. Thank you very much Mummy Nat.)

In addition to slooowly working my way through "What Color is Your Parachute" I'm also :

• continuing my piano lessons
• currently in the middle of an 8-week creative writing class (I'm not a writer so I thought this would be a brain boost for me)
• taking ballroom dance lessons with the hubby

I'm not expecting any of the aforementioned activities to lead to a life-altering career. But they are things that I've never really done before. Except the piano lessons. Which I hated as a kid. And even when I switched to percussion I was the least talented musician of my band group of friends.

I guess I'd sum it up by saying that I'm doing some soul-searching. But that sounds cliche. I'm not trying to find my soul. I'm trying to find something that will lead me to a career that is fulfilling.  One where I can actively contribute and use skills I've acquired over the years - and learn news ones!  (ok, that last bit might have been laced with a wee bit of sarcasm...) 

I will continue to explore and hopefully find a door I want to open or that will open for me.  I guess you never know where you might find the answer.

Thank God It's Snowing!

Never thought you'd see me type that, eh?  It's because when it snows here it SNOWS! which means I usually can't do much of anything else.  So I have time to do other things. In this case - learn how to use my new phone.

My Droid crapped out on me.  Finally.  For about a year (I'd only had it barely 2) it had been giving me a host of problems.  To make matters worse the hubby has the exact same phone and experienced almost none of my issues.  He either blamed all the issues on me being impatient or user error.  A few months ago I think he finally broke down and admitted that, in fact, the phone was possessed. 

Then Thursday night it went complete batshit crazy and the bottom third of the touch screen stopped responding.  The biggest problem with that glitch - that's the part you have to touch to execute calls.  Kinda defeats the function of a PHONE, doesn't it? 

I opted to get a whole new phone instead of taking advantage of my warranty since we'd been talking about getting a new one anyway.  I should note here that my company pays for my phone bill (but not the cost of the phone itself) otherwise 1. I wouldn't be paying for a warranty in the first place or 2. if I were I would definitely be taking advantage of it.  Of course the trade off of the company paying for my personal phone bill - I have to use it for work.  Just keep that in mind....

I am now the proud owner of a Droid Razr.  (kids and their spelling these daz!!  sheesh!)  I have to say with regards to size it is quite thin!  The majority of the body is about as wide as a pencil!!  The phone itself it about as large as my hand/ palm.  Which = large screen.  Which is a plus and minus.  See the screen better.  But the phone is bigger.  It doesn't fit in my wallet/ wristlet I had for my original Droid.  I now know why people are ALWAYS playing on their phones.  They're so big they have to hold them in their hands. And if it's already in your hand might as well use it, right??

There are many new features with this phone that I have to learn.  For example, just this morning I went to take a picture of the snow outside to send to my dad.  I had just woken up, had my first cup of coffee in my hand.  Beautiful, fluffy snow was falling and we had a foot already accumulated on top of the everything outside.  It was pristine. I wanted to take the picture before the neighborhood kids came out to play and people started to walk their dogs...  capture the early morning stillness. As I was holding up the phone to snap a shot I noticed an icon on the screen that was new to me.  I hit it and all of a sudden...  ACK!!!!  It was ME.  Morning face, waaay up close, dark circles under my eyes, big zit on my chin, terribly uneven skin tone (wow! I knew it was bad, but not that bad! ugh!) I damn near dropped my coffee!

Apparently this icon swings the camera to you.  (little camera eye on this side of the phone) Without you having to awkwardly hold the camera backwards to take a picture of yourself.  Rather, you can see yourself on the phone screen AND take the picture of yourself at the same time.  Fantastic for all of those people who take picture of themselves and with friends.  NOT fantastic when you accidentally figure out this feature when you first wake up in the morning and look like ass.

Hopefully I can figure out the rest without any more unwanted "surprises".

Oh, and if you have this phone...  HELP!!!

A New Year's Vacation

We took a vacation. Together. Me and the hubby.

And we're still married.

I call that a success.

We shared a 3 bedroom, three bathroom penthouse with two other couples on the Gulf coast in Florida. Beautiful views, great company.  Lovely weekend.  Neat way to spend New Years.

The details, however, are the stuff of legend.

• We obligingly took the room with the (wrongly booked) bunkbeds.  With several engineers in attendance (and luckily the other 2 couples being local) we McGuyver'ed ourselves a flat bed with a queen air mattress on top.  It worked.  Don't worry - we made the hotel give us a discount.
• We ate enough food to last a million years.  However the other 2 couples took home enough leftovers to last them another million years.
• I am officially a candied pecan.  I know because I ate my weight in them.
• I now want to unlearn things such as the definitions of: Santorum (not Rick), Dirty Sanchez, Gorilla Mask, and a million other terrible things that only boys would be dumb enough to know (and think it's funny)
• NOTE - if you're so inclined to learn about such things DO NOT google on a work computer.  Just sayin'
• If you're worried whether someone just had sex in your bathroom send me in.  I'm a good inspector/ evidence eraser. (for those of you with more delicate sensibilities.)

I promised I would not make a t-shirt about this weekend.  Which is fine by me because I wouldn't wear a t-shirt that said "Dirty Sanchez" even to the gym....