The Hubbs and the Pups

     With the Hubbs being a grad student for one more semester, this is the time of year he loves sitting still and hanging out.  Grad school is still easier than what he used to do (power plant worker with 12 hours on and 12 hours off switching between days and nights), but you get the idea.  Annie and Paul love the fact that they have 3 walks a day right now and free time all day with Dad to nap and lounge around the house as they please.

     Today, I had to laugh though.  I'm sitting on the couch in the living room listen to the Hubbs talk to Annie.  "You've bugged me all day to pet you.  Come up here (onto the bed) to be petted.  Annie nudges his arm again.  "No, up here!"  Annie nudges arm.  Hubbs gets up and picks up Annie and puts her onto the bed, and stretches back out.  "I"ll pet you up here."  I hear Annie jump down off of the bed.  She walks around and must have nudged his arm again.  "No, up here.  I"ll pet you on the bed."  
     Something tells me this will be tonights entertainment.

Obviously, this draft is a few months old, but it's things like this that I still enjoy reading.....

Wordless Wednesday: How we spent 4th of July

There's nothing like chilling with a friend and her pup on The 4th of July!  (We didn't go to see any fireworks, and Bella was safe and sound the entire time.  Annie and Paul spent the holiday at home secure in their own home.)

Wear Your Sweaters!

      Presently, the Hubbs, Annie, Paul, and I live in Virginia.  However, it's not were either the Hubbs or I are from.

Monument Valley, AZ.  Where the Hubbs family has lived for over 100 years!

    For anyone who doesn't know, I'm originally from Pittsburgh, PA (aka, PGH).  While I'm not the typical Yinzer and follow the Steelers (I watch/cheer for them, but my mom holds the title of "resident sports nerd" in this area).  My Grandfather follows the Pirates and can quote baseball stats from the 50's, but it's my brother who has bonded with him over the love of the game.  And, as much as I love watching the Pens as an adult, I wasn't raised on them like Kim at YellowBrickHome.

Heaven only knows where my dad was standing when he took this picture.

    No, what makes my heart pound with homesickness for PGH is Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.  Perhaps it's because I'm an elementary school teacher.  Maybe watching Mr. Rogers for 1 to 3 hours a day as a pre schooler living in Philly (where we lived for a few years) was what did it for me.  Either way, I can't help but follow the blog the Fred Roger's Company does.  Even now, as an adult, I turn to quotes from Mr. Rogers when things scare me.

"When I was a boy and I would see scarey things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers, You will allways find people who are helping.'  To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers- so many caring people in this world." -Fred Rogers

  

     March 20th would have been Mr. Roger's 85th birthday.  In honor of his work, the Fred Roger's Company is asking everyone to wear a sweater and do something neighborly.  While I haven't gotten Annie or Paul their own sweaters yet (I'm still oogling Tiennot Knits Sweaters for 2 in Fred Roger's Red), I'm planning on wearing my softest sweater in hopes you'll join me.  Won't you be our neighbor in blogville?

SNOW!!!!

     Here in Richmond, VA, we don't get much snow.  As a matter of fact, I say "snow" is the "S" word when I'm in school.  For the simple fact that if you say "snow," every kids eyes are glued to the window and nothing gets done for at least 3 days.

The funny thing is, there's really not much snow when it does come.  Officially, we got 1.6 inches last week and schools were closing because of it.  The Hubbs grew up in the Four Corners area where snow wasn't a problem to drive on.  The dirt roads were throughly frozen and the school buses had no problems getting through.  (In contrast, school would be canceled for rain because the dirt roads would be a mess to drive on)

http://www.lapahie.com/MonuVal_Snow.cfm

Pittsburgh, where I grew up, is no stranger to snow either.   As a matter of fact, they've already had at least 2 winter storms come through since winter started.  

For Annie and Paul though, this seemed to be the perfect snow.  Just enough to march trough on the grass but not so much to cover the sidewalks a make it uber cold for them.  

The Pups: When Mom's away, the pups won't play!

      Any time my schedule changes (summer ends and I go back to school, breaks end and I go back to school, the weekend, or we go away for a few days)  Annie and Paul go on a slight hunger strike.

There's food in the dishes, but no one's eating it.

They tend to either not eat at all, or only eat once a day.  Their Aunt Karen has been known to buy them chicken stock and hand feed them when Mom and Dad are out of town.

Vintage Annie and Paul (I think we had only had Paul for a month in this picture. )

I took a total of 3 days to run up to Pittsburg, PA for the holiday and left The Hubbs with Annie and Paul.  Even with the hubbs at home, Annie and Paul only ate once a day.  They did however, get a bit spoiled with bully sticks!

Paul's "Cave"

 The Hubbs has a juicer and a rice cooker that have been sitting on the kitchen table for a while.

Everyone needs their own private island, right?

Last week, I bought a small kitchen island for the Hubbs from a friend of ours.  So the small appliances have been moved to their own island.

But now I'm realizing that I don't know where to put the kitchen table.  I pushed it into the corner of my  room, and it sits over Paul's bed in my room.  (Paul tends to hang out there when I'm cooking or doing laundry.)  It took me about 20 minutes to get Paul to go to his bed, and I did it by stretching out on his bed to snuggle with him and give him a bully stick.  But now, when I give him any treat, he goes right to his bed and seems to love his new cave.

My cave!  

Dognomics: Resource Scarcity

There is only so much sauce in the spaghetti container that either Annie or Paul can eat so there are 3 ways that sauce can be rationed out for them. 

1) First come, first serve: We finish the spaghetti, and whistle and who ever come running gets to eat the spaghetti sauce.  Since Paul is so nervous about coming up to the hubs, Annie usually gets the most food that way.

2) Second is by lottery.  We get a coin and assign heads to Paul and tails to Ms. Butt (get it: butt, tails?  Anyhow) We flip the coin and whatever side the coin lands on, we award the spaghetti sauce to them?

3) Third is by auction.  We can call over both Annie and Paul and say, who ever gives the most kisses to the mom gets this spaghetti sauce.  So Annie would offer 4 sniffles and a kiss.  Paul, since he’s much more loving, would offer a million kisses to the Mom!  Since obviously, a million is more than 1, Paul would get the spaghetti sauce that way.  

Talking to the Dogs: Economic theory

     When I saw the post the other day from 2 Pitties in the City, I realized how much the Hubbs and I talk to Annie and Paul.  The Hubbs is in a graduate program for Economics, what I understand about Economics, you could fit on the back of a postage stamp (if you could find a postage stamp, but that's another conversation for another day.)  So, often, Economic theroy is discussed with Annie.
     Annie and the Hubbs walk together (she is such a Daddy's Girl) and when she decides to do something, the Hubbs starts in with Economic theory.
Annie: *Sniffs at old bone on ground*
Hubbs: "Annie, are the marginal benefits greater than the marginal costs?"
Annie: *Starts to pick up bone off of ground.*
Hubbs: "Annie, No!"  *Reaches into Annie's mouth and pulls out the bone*
Annie: *Gives sad puppy eyes to Daddy*
Hubbs: "Annie, the marginal cost is my hand in your mouth pulling out the bone.  The marginal benefit is the bone in your mouth for 3 seconds.  The marginal benefit isn't worth the marginal cost!"
Annie: *Gives sad puppy eyes to Daddy*
Hubbs: *in high pitched voice meant to be Annie speaking* "But you didn't let me taste it long enough to know if it was worth it."
Hubbs: *In normal voice* Annie, but the bone is old and doesn't have any meat on it, plus it will make you throw up at home.
Thus ends a lesson of Dognomics.......

The Looks

     The looks I get when I eat are horrible.  The Hubbs right now has night classes 3 days a week.  So that means 3 days a week, I'm sitting at home eating dinner and getting these looks.

     Never mind that there's water in their water dishes, food in their food bowls, as well as some canned pumpkin, and white rice.  The home made macaroni and cheese in my bowl is much more appealing.  

Annie Eats her Veggies (sort of)

      Annie and Paul both eat their fair share of grass.  They don't go for the "nicely taken care of" lawns with chemicals added, but the scraggly looking grass on the poorly taken care of lawns (we fit into the 2nd category for a reason.).  Annie was bugging The Hubbs for some of his salad the other night.

    Annie takes the lettuce and carrots, licks the spicy dressing off, and spits the veggies out......onto the Hubbs blue jeans.  *Sigh*

Sandy (sitting, waiting, and wishing)

     We've both gotten word that our schools are closed tomorrow in anticipation of Sandy's wind and rain wreaking havoc for the Richmond, VA area.  So now we're just sitting here finishing up lesson plans (me), grading (both), and mid terms (Hubbs).  Waiting to see what Sandy does and wishing everyone out there in the Bloguspher (sp?) safety during and after Sandy.

Chocolate Croissants are a basic survival food for storms, right? 

     Our oven and stove top are both gas powered, so we've got plans to live on spaghetti and Coka-Cola during the storm.   Once I looked at the weather maps, we decided that evacuating to Pittsburgh was out of the picture.  I just talked to my mom an hour ago, and they've had 24 hours of rain with some wind so far.  In comparison, we've had wind, but only some drizzle.

     Annie and Paul have taken turns stretched out on our bed watching out the windows to see what's coming next.  We're still packed incase we have to evacuate, but at the moment I don't know where that would be to.  (Our house has a 1 foot crawl space underneath, and we're higher than our cars are on the street.) Stay safe everyone in Blogville!  

     
     

Bath Time: Part 2

     After Paul got his bath, Annie knew it was her turn.  I was totally soaked from Paul, so the Hubbs was nice enough to pick up Annie and bring her into the bathroom for me.  Paul's water was filthy, so I drained it and Annie got nice clean water for her bath.

Woe is me!  I don't like baths!

     For all of the moping that Annie does while getting a bath, she is our "mature" puppy.  I can almost hear her say, "Ok, fine, I'll stand here so you can bathe me, but I'm not happy about it!"  She stands still in the tub as water's poured over her, soap is worked in (thank you Rupert's Simply Smoochable Doggie Shampoo that we learned about from Emily over at Our Waldo Bungie), and rinsed off.

     While Paul tries to escape, Annie just looks hopelessly sad the entire bath.  Because of her allergies, we use the unscented dog shampoo with minimal ingredients in it to try and help her have as few allergic reactions as possible.  

Does anyone else out there have any strategies you use to give your pups a bath?

Bath Time: Part 1

     I always know Annie and Paul need a bath when Paul stops rolling in the grass to get rid of his "nice clean smell."  This past weekend, before the stomach flue hit,  Annie and Paul got their bath's.
Paul got to go first.  We've never even tried taking either of them somewhere to get a bath, Paul developed a fear of PetSmart when an inexperienced nail trimmer trimmed his nails.  Now when we go in, he does his best to drag me away from the salon.

Please excuse the duck tape on tile in the background.  That's the present home improvement project that we need to finish! 

     Paul's improved from when we would first bathe him.  It would take both the Hubbs and I about 20 minutes.  I'd play goalie to keep Paul in the tub, and Hubbs would be in charge of washing him.  Because of Paul trying to climb out of the tub by going over, around, and through me (I'm stronger than I look) I'd wear long sleeve shirts and blue jeans to try to protect my skin from his nails.  (I swear Paul is part cat).  For this bath, he only tried to go over my left shoulder once (Yea, progress!).

   
     Part of what has calmed him down is running a few inches of bath water before I put him in the tub. We used to use the shower head and he didn't like that at all!  Now we use the bath water and an old plastic drink container to pour water over him.  Paul's still not a fan of the bath, but he'll tolerate it better now.  I can even wash him by myself!

The Hubbs and the Pups

     When we first got Annie and Paul, my husband worked at a power plant and had all sorts of weird hours.  There were times we'd walk them together, but there were just as many times I walked them by myself.  When he was on night shift, they'd sleep in bed with me and I always knew they were there when I got home from school.  At one point, he had friends at work teasing him about, "who does your wife love more, you or the dogs?"  And then it happened.

     The hubbs fell off a ladder at work and broke his femur (this would be the thigh bone).  And during the recuperation period of 6 months, something happened.  Annie and Paul stopped being MY dogs and went to being OUR dogs.

     Over the 6 months it took for his femur to heal, he spent every day with the dogs.  At first, he couldn't do much other than pet them while sitting in the recliner.  And Paul was always nervous around him to begin with.

Before a party to celebrate the end of the football season, Hubbs dressed in AZ Cardinals colors.   Look how nervous Paul is.

     Now, Paul is still a bit nervous with the hubbs, but he's excited to see the hubbs when he gets home.  He walks nicely next to Hubbs on our daily walks, and he'll snuggle with the hubbs during the days time.

Before Annie and Paul

     We've had Annie and Paul now for 5 years.  But 6 years ago, we eloped.  Among the many reasons to elope were the fact that we come from 2 different parts of the country and trying to blend both parts for a wedding ceremony is a huge challenge.  The hubbs and I got married under a 100+ year old magnolia tree with just the 2 of us an a JP with a simple civil ceremony.  Fifteen minutes and we were heading for sushi for dinner.  (Our first date was for sushi).
     When we got married, most people that we knew were a single race couple.  We were the only ones that are of 2 different races.  This is one of my favorite things about Blogville: we're not the only multi racial couple here.  
     One of my favorite blogs to read is Two Pitties in the City who did a fabulous post about Miss M: 100% Mutt and how she'll be a great roll model for any future children they may have  because Miss M is a mutt who doesn't care "what type of dog is she?"  She just know's she's loved.  And in the end, isn't that all that matters?
     Somewhere along the last 6 years, I heard of Loving Day from my friend Shar.  Loving Day (June 12, 1967) marks the day each year that the Supreme Court handed down it's ruling in the case Loving V. Virginia.  Loooong story made short, the Lovings were a couple in the 60's who got kicked out of Virginia for being a multi racial couple.  The ACLU took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, and they won.  Giving multi racial couples across America the right to marry.  The main celebration is in NYC, but smaller celebrations are found all across the US.

Our Family Copyright 2010 by Rich Terrell

Walking in the Neighborhood

I can't help but think of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood any time I say the word neighborhood.  (Yep, defiantly a dork.)  My wonderful hubbs took pics of the neighborhood walk the other day.

Sitting, waiting, and wishing Mom had a treat!

Looking right and left before crossing the street.

Sniffing the grass.