We’ve been talking about getting dogs for years.  For longer than we’ve been living in this house, which is almost as long as we’ve been married.  We’ve wanted dogs for a long time.  But we’re very specific about the kind of dogs that we want.  We both have a lot of allergies, so only one of the very few breeds that are allergy-friendly would work.  And only one of those is a breed that we actually like:  Bichons.  Small little fluff balls with puppy personalities.  They’re just about the most adorable things I’ve ever seen.

And there they were!  Sitting in a pen at the pet adoption booth at the Faire.  Bishons never come up for adoption – not full-blooded ones anyway—and suddenly there were two of them just sitting there, their curly hair cut short, poking their button noses through the wires of the pen.  I didn’t even notice them until someone else in our group pointed at them, but then I bee-lined right over to them and asked if I could hold one.

And I sat there at the edge of the booth, with a Bichon on my lap, snuggling his soft fur and babbling nonsense at him, while Justin stood nearby patting the one being held by a booth volunteer, and I just melted.  I turned into butter and melted to a puddle on that bench.  When the volunteer put them back into their pen and we walked away, I almost broke into tears.  I wanted to take those dogs home with us.

That evening, at the hotel, we looked up the group who was offering the dogs and tried to find information about them and how the adoption process would work.  We didn’t find the dogs listed, so the next morning, we sent an email asking for more information.

A couple days later, the woman who’s fostering the dogs emailed us back.  Over the next couple days, during which she gained a grandchild, we emailed back and forth – her mostly saying that she’d love to give us more information, but she was a little busy at the moment, and us saying congratulations and please just contact us when she had time.

Friday afternoon, she called.  She told me about their history, as much as she knew, and their personalities.  We talked about the adoption process and how that would work.  Most of that conversation now is a blur – I was so overwhelmed that she had called.  I do know that she said they were neutered and had all their shots.  That one was 1.5 and the other was 3 years.  They’d been together for a long time and she wanted them to go as a pair – which was fine for us because we’d want to have two anyway to make sure they didn’t getting lonely.  One of them loved belly rubs and the other just loved to be on your lap.  And the adoption fee would be somewhere around $250 per dog, but she’d be willing to negotiate that because she wants so much for them to go together.

We told her that we were very interested but we’d have to look over our finances and get back to her.  We’d get started on the paperwork, though, so that could start working its way through the system.

The $250/dog was daunting, but doable.  Especially since it seemed like we’d be able to work out something to reduce that by a whole lot – maybe by as much as half.

That evening, we talked with our friend Julie, who works as a vet tech, to ask what we’d be getting ourselves into.  She told us about flea prevention and heartworm medication, shots and dental care, and all those sorts of things.  Some of it we already knew about, but heartworm is much more prevalent down here, so that was news. 

Justin started researching how much we’d need to do in order to get the house prepared and how much we’d need to pay per month to take care of them.  He came up with a number close to $150/month.  Still doable, but it was starting to become a little worrisome.  We started talking about whether or not we wanted to have pets more than we wanted to get out of debt as quickly as possible.  I was still head-over-heals about the dogs and was willing to compromise our plan by a couple years in order to have them.  I daydreamed about them constantly – how it would be to snuggle with them after work, about going on walks, playing with toys.  I wanted the dogs.

I emailed our landlady to ask of the $500 pet-deposit in our rental agreement was a per-dog fee.  She emailed back and said that it was per pet.  $250 of it would be refundable, but the initial payment was going to be $1000.  That number was entirely out of reach of our budget.  There was no way we could add $1000 expense to our month, in addition to the $250 plus adoption fee (maybe plus more for 2 dogs), and initial costs (vet visit, leashes, dishes, brushes, etc.).  I considered that maybe we could defer some of those payments, extending them over several months.

I was talking to Mom while thinking all these things over and she laid it straight out.  She said that it was an insane amount of money to pay (for the pet fee) and that we shouldn’t do it.  I, of course, didn’t like hearing that because PUPPIES.  I wanted the Bichons.  I was still processing it through and trying to find a way where we could afford it and still have the dogs.

I talked with Justin about it after I got off the phone with Mom, and he gently pointed out that Mom was right.  It’s a lot of money.  And we’d really have to decide which was more important – getting out of debt or having the dogs.  Because it wouldn’t just set us back a little bit; it would set us back by YEARS.  If we keep going the way we are, we could pay off the final credit card, the computer debt, all the trips we’re making this year, PLUS THE CAR before the end of 2013.  If we decided to get the dogs instead, it would be a lot longer.  He was willing to do it if I really, really wanted to do it.  He wants me to be happy.  But I needed to be sure.

So I thought about it.  I had a cry over it.  And I decided that there would be other Bichons eventually, and that these two Bichons were not going to belong to us.  It wasn’t a No-Not-Ever decision, it was a No-Not-Now.  We’ll keep working hard to pay off our debts and then, once we were on solid footing (and hopefully in a house that does not require a $1000 fee), we’d look again.

Until then, I’m going to start picking up things that we’d need for the dogs – dishes and brushes and leashes.  I’ll keep an eye out for sales or things that are just too cute to pass up.  Maybe I’ll start stockpiling distilled water, since apparently that’s what they’re supposed to drink (it helps keep the tear stains away).  (Actually, I just looked it up, and I think maybe we’ll save money for a home distilling machine.  It’s $200 up front, but it’ll probably be worth it.)  Basically, I’m going to keep an eye out for things because we are going to need them eventually.  And that’s my promise to myself, the thing that keeps me from crying of heartache:  EVENTUALLY.

I worked Friday morning, and ended up working a couple hours longer than anticipated because I had to get the boss’ travel visa submitted before I could go home. Plus, he rescheduled a meeting and asked that I order pizza, so there was that to coordinate, too.

That evening, Becky and Julie came over for our weekly dose of Dr. Who. We cooked out on the grill – hotdogs/brats and corn on the cob. Deliciousness!

Saturday evening, we went to the drive-in theater in Beaufort. I’d never been to a drive-in before – it was so much fun! We went to see The Avengers; Becky and Julie hadn’t seen it yet and Justin and I enjoyed it so much, we wanted to watch it again. It was, once again, a delight! Plus I got to eat popcorn and funnel cake. We sat on lawn chairs in front of our cars with a portable radio on Justin’s lap for the sound. The weather was amazing – clear starry skies and just a hint of a breeze. It got a little cooler as the night set in, maybe into the mid-70s. It was perfect!

The second movie for the evening was John Carter. If you haven’t heard of it, I’m not surprised. If you have heard of it, it’s a terrible movie. The writing is just amazingly awful. Visually, it’s not bad, but it’s really not worth seeing. (When your favorite character of the whole movie is a dog-like frog-thing and not the main characters, you know something has gone wrong.) After the end of Avengers, most of the people left so there wasn’t anybody anywhere nearby where we were sitting. So we sat there and made fun of the film the whole time. It as great fun!

It did mean that I didn’t get to bed until after 2am, and then I had to get up and to church by 8am to practice for the service, but it was worth it.

Sunday morning I sang at church. I always enjoy getting to sing with the band. I sang at church last Mother’s Day, too. I wonder if that’s intentional? After church, I took care of stuff around the house: Justin’s car needed washing because we have a potential buyer interested, laundry needed washing, errands needed running. I picked up the programmable thermostat our landlady approved for us to install. The problem with the air conditioning quitting now and then was diagnosed as being because there’s a wire loose with the current thermostat. So we’re putting in a programmable one and we’re *very* excited about that. I was hoping she’d approve us to get the one that you can program from your phone or the internet, even when you’re not at home, but no such luck.

And I enjoyed a nice long chat with Mom who I don’t talk with nearly often enough. I love you, Mom! You said some very true things about the money involved in that decision we’re considering. I didn’t want to hear it, but you’re right, and we’re probably going to hold off on that purchase until after the car is paid off. (Everyone else, I’m sure I’ll write about this once Justin and I have made our decision.)

But I got to work this morning with the overwhelming feeling that I didn’t get nearly as much accomplished over the weekend as I would have liked. I had a heap of a lot of fun doing the things that I did. I just wanted to do more! Sewing projects! Finish the laundry! Work on the attic/office project! (That is not an office in the attic by the way. You’d die if you tried to stay up there in the summer. Instead, this is the attic contents currently overflowing my office.)

I’m so glad the evenings are getting longer – I might be able to work through some of those undone items done after work this week. Otherwise, I’m just going to have to figure out how to pack more into my weekend next week!

Thursday last week, Justin and I met up with our friend John, the chiropractor, for the midnight showing of the Avenger’s movie.  SO GOOD!  Oh, my gosh.  I think we might go see it again it was SO fun to watch.  Great scripting, great action scenes, great fun!  I highly recommend this if you haven’t seen it yet.

But it was at midnight, right?  So I worked all day Thursday, came home, went to bed for 5 not-so-great hours of sleep, got up and showered, and went to the movie.  And then we came home, I changed clothes, and went to work while Justin went to sleep.  I worked from 4am to 8am (got a lot of stuff done in that time, too – it’s amazing how much I can get done when no one’s interrupting me), and then went home.

Why?  Because there was no way I was going to be able to sleep after watching that movie.  And besides, we wanted to get out of town in the early afternoon.

So after I got home, I packed while Justin slept.  And then he got up, we took care of a few errands, his sister showed up, and we set off for Atlanta.  Well, technically, we set off for Bethlehem, GA, where our friends Bill and Heddi (and Jenny) live, so we could go out to dinner with them for really delicious Chinese food.  And we sat there chatting for a long time before heading off to our hotel near Fairburn, GA, just south of Atlanta.

We got in and I crashed after being awake for 24 hours.  We got up the next morning and went to the Renaissance Festival for the day with our friends Becky and Julie.  We brought Jessi, Justin’s sister, as her birthday present (Happy Birthday, Jessi! — she turns 21 tomorrow).  So we wandered around the fair, catching a show of the Zucchini Brothers (juggling) and Hey Nunni Nunni (traveling singing nuns) and the Tortuga Twins (naughty hilarity and sword-play).  I bought a necklace – I think I’ve got a necklace the last four years of going to this festival.  It was a lot of fun and I didn’t get nearly as sunburned as I feared.

Afterward, we went back to the hotel to swim and shower and then went out to dinner together.  Have you ever eaten at Mellow Mushroom?  Their calzones are amazing!

The next day, we were hoping to catch up with Bill and Heddi again, but Heddi has finals this week, so she was up to her eyeballs in studying and couldn’t get away.  But it meant that we were back home slightly after 6pm instead of nearly midnight, which was a perk.

Especially because I had to get up for work at 5:30 Monday morning.  That evening was pretty much recovery from the weekend.  We had leftovers from the weekend for dinner and I watched TV.  Justin played Mass Effect – he got the third game for super cheap but he has to replay the first two games to get the carry-over content into the third because that was lost when his computer died, I guess.

Yesterday, though, I got home and cleaned up downstairs.  It wasn’t a very thorough clean where I dust and wipe down the fronts of appliances, but the floors were a mess so everything got vacuumed / mopped.  And there was mail piled up on the table and stuff from my car that had been brought in to make space over the weekend and the trash and recycling need to get taken out.  We’re working on cleaning up the attic and planning to have a garage sale in the middle of June, so the TV stand that we used at the old house but haven’t even unwrapped since we got here was sitting in the middle of the living room and driving Justin nuts.  So I hid that behind the sofa.  And all my sewing stuff was all over because I’m working on making cushion covers for Becky’s Casita (the camper trailer that they’re living in right now) and I made that all into a neat little pile.

Basically, there was stuff everywhere and it was getting overwhelming.  So since I was feeling energetic, I took care of it.  I should go back and dust and all those more fine details, but honestly?  There’s laundry to do and the attic to finish and the office to do after that, so it’s highly unlikely that the dusting is going to happen any time soon.

But that’s okay.  I can walk into the kitchen without cringing at the mold growing in the vase of flowers (*sigh*) and sit in the living room without walking around the grocery bag filled with card games. I call that a win!

And I call this a forever long ramble, so I’m going to close it up there.  But it was a really fun weekend and I didn’t want to pass by without talking about it a little. 

Last night before bed, Justin and I had a little bit of ice cream.  We had some toffee bits in the cupboard next to the fridge, so I went to grab some as a topping.  Justin went upstairs.  When I opened the cabinet, though, something came tumbling out.  As it tumbled, it hit the glass that was sitting on the counter next to the fridge.  It turns out when a glass McCormick spice jar hits a tall iced tea glass, the spice jar wins.

The tea glass exploded.  There were big shards of it that flew across the kitchen.  There were tiny slivers of it sprinkled all over the counter.  There was glass on my pants and glass stuck to the spoon I was holding in my hand as I went to open the cabinet.  I swear I felt pinpricks all over my arm as the explosion blew glass upwards.

I screamed.  And I don’t mean just a little “Oh! That surprised me” scream.  I mean, I shrieked like I thought I was going to be in serious bodily harm.  That thing scared the snot out of me.  I’d stepped back a half-step when I saw the spice jar start to fall and then I stood absolutely still while the rain of glass settled.

Justin, my hero man, yelled “I’m coming!” from upstairs as soon as I screamed.  He came down and surveyed the situation, took the rug from behind me and shook it outside to make sure there wasn’t any glass on it, and then helped me step backward onto that safe surface.  Then he went and got the broom to sweep up the floor.

I stood still until I was sure that it was safe to move again.  Then I picked the glass off my pants, rinsed the glass of my spoon, and started checking to make sure I didn’t have glass anywhere else on me.  I have one scratch from glass that hit where my pajama top had exposed my stomach when my arm was lifted up to reach into the cabinet.  And we’re not sure if the spots on my arm are from the glass or just from my keratosis.  (Keratosis pilaris/follicular keratosis = nothing to worry about.)  Otherwise, I’m perfectly fine.

But we’re down one more iced tea glass.

Happy cheap-jellybean day, everybody!  I hope your Easter was fantastic!  Ours was delightful!  Neither one of us was scheduled to help at church, so we probably got to sleep in longest of everybody yesterday – I got up at 9 and Justin got up at 9:45 (it’s amazing how guys can get ready in less than 15 minutes!).  We went to church, which was awesome, and then came back home right afterward because my problem with large crowds was flaring up with so many people at church and I had to get back home where it was quiet.

But I got a lot accomplished over the weekend and I feel really good about it.  I sat down Friday afternoon and wrote down all the things that I’d like to get accomplished around the house.  And then I marked which ones I need help from Justin to get done.  And then I marked which ones need supplies or money spent on them in order to get finished.  And the things that didn’t require any money and didn’t involve Justin, I set to with a will.

Things that I got done include:

• Re-stuffed my knee pillow
• Made a pillow case for my knee pillow
• Re-hemmed a skirt
• Sewed a button on Justin’s pants
• Sewed a button on my car’s seatbelt
• Fixed a shirtWashed all my hand-wash clothes
• Figured out what I need to fix another skirt (bias tape)
• Inventoried the canned goods in the pantry
• Washed the green off all the lawn furniture
• Re-organized the outside storage closet

There are still a lot of things on that list, but I made good headway.  And by the time I got done with the furniture and closet outside yesterday, I was completely exhausted.  Justin made me dinner (a feast of pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, and hashbrowns!) and I went to bed early.  But I didn’t get sunburned because I thought ahead and put on sunscreen and a hat before I went outside. I’m rather proud of myself for that.  I even put on bug spray and wore long socks under my pants and shoes to prevent the ant stings that plagued Justin when he did yardwork last Monday.

We have a deep, abiding animosity toward fire ants around this house.  They’re tiny little ants that grow in huge mounds of sand and they HURT.  Seriously, they’re so little it doesn’t make sense that such a tiny little thing should create so much pain, but they’re so vicious.  I don’t react too badly, usually, just a small, itchy bump that itches for 3 or 4 days and then fades after a week or two.  Justin is slightly allergic so he gets huge, itchy bumps that itch for a week or more and get inflamed and infected.  We have, right now, maybe 3 or 4 mounds of these in the yard and we’re going to hit them with poison and try to drive them out. 

Amy, you should watch out for these with the kids – these ants are mostly southern, as far as I can tell, and they are NASTY.  They can swarm and sting and do a whole lot of damage in a short amount of time if they’re angry.  If the kids don’t know about avoiding these yet, I’d recommend teaching them ASAP.  These ants are not the meek little ants that I poked at when I was a kid.  Poke a stick in these nests and the kid holding the stick will be in a lot of pain very soon.
And that’s my nature lesson for the day.

I hope you all have a fantastic Monday!

I am having a little trouble making the embedded video work, though, so if it doesn’t show up on the site, click here for the YouTube link.

Miss Eloise

Until last Monday when she disappeared.  I’m not entirely sure if after all this time someone finally bought her or if the people in charge of the river got sick of her being anchored there or if she sunk or what.  But I drove over the bridge on Monday last week and nearly ran into the guardrails because I looked over to see how high the water was and which way the tide was flowing (when the tide is coming in, the river flows inland) and I usually check Miss Eloise to see all that information and she was gone!

It’s strange the amount of affection I’d developed for that poor lonely boat.  I hope where ever she is, she’s getting the attention she’s needed for a while to get off all the rust and clean up her nets and all.

I really don’t know what else to say about that.  It seems like something so small and unimportant because why should I care about someone else’s boat that’s been anchored in the river for years and years?  And why on earth should any of you care when you’ve never even driven over that bridge?  But it was so surprising and unexpected and every time I drive over that bridge, there’s something missing.  There’s a spot on the river that shouldn’t be so empty.

A couple days after my last post, Justin’s mom arrived in town and was around for 2 weeks.  She wasn’t here that whole time — she spent time in Savannah over St. Patrick’s day (if you’re going to spend the day there, you need to be there the day ahead or you’re not getting anywhere very fast) and she and my sister-in-law (SIL) went up to visit friends in Macon and visit the aquarium in Atlanta.  Unfortunately, my SIL’s car got stolen in Macon, which is apparently the 17th most likely place to get your car stolen in the US.  The insurance got them a rental and the car was found later the next day with all its parts and all damages were covered by the insurance.  Plus the kid either planted an ID or dropped his own ID in the car, which makes him either very clever or very stupid.  I’m leaning toward stupid since the only thing missing from the car was a bunch of change for parking meters.  Except that they did remove the registration paperwork from the glove box and removed (replaced?) the licence plates.

Anyway, the car was found and fixed and returned and the biggest hassle of the whole deal was Justin returning the rental car because there was no paperwork regarding the car (turns out the paperwork ended up in Vermont) and the place where he was returning the car (Hilton Head Island) believed that the place where the car was from (Macon) was closed for the month and not able to rent cars.  Big mess.  Very annoying.  But eventually resolved.

Okay, so Wendy and Jessi were here at the house for a while and it was a pleasant visit, but it left no time for writing.  When they went out of town, they left the Bichon in our care so we could test out dog ownership for a bit and that was fun.

Other than them visiting, let’s see, I took a 3-day class in Savannah on how to use MS Project and I’m so much more educated now but still not sure about a lot of stuff.  It’s a very complicated, versatile program.  And while it was fun and  novel to be in class and I sometimes enjoyed being in the city again, it was also difficult to be locked into a windowless room about the size of our bathroom and listening to a teacher over the phone for seven hours of the day.  And the driving in downtown did not endear that part of the city to me.

Other news…  I found the key to the back storage shed!  It was stuck way down behind the piano where I swear we looked several times but some how I found it while cleaning a couple weeks ago.  So now we can get into the pool, which opened for the season last weekend.

I know!  The pool is open!  It’s great.  I love it here.

Except for the pollen.  Ugh.  The pollen can stop.

Our wedding anniversary was last week = 4 years!  We’re still very happy about that.

We went out to dinner with Justin’s grandpa’s girlfriend Pat last Saturday.  It was wonderful to see her again.  We’re making plans to see Justin’s grandpa before the end of the summer — probably over the 4th of July.  He’s deteriorating faster than anticipated.  We’re worried about both of them.  Pat’s been with Grandpa Doug for longer than Justin’s been alive.  It’s a difficult time for Justin, too.

Upcoming events-wise, the GA Ren Faire opens next week, I think that is.  And at the end of May, Sara’s going to come visit over the Memorial Day weekend.  And immediately after she leaves, we’re heading to DC to spend time for a wedding and because I’ve never been to DC and I’d like to catch the sites.  We’re looking forward to the end of May A LOT and we’re starting to pinch our pennies very tightly so we have money to pay for all that.

On that note, Justin got a payment from a client!!  And we took that and put it toward a credit card, taking it from very nearly maxed out to almost completely cleared out in one fell swoop.  AWESOME!!

And I’m trying to lose weight again.  But I don’t feel like talking about it right now.

Okay!  One quick massive update for everybody so I feel like I can keep writing again and not have to go back over all that and explain where I’ve been for the last several weeks.

Good?  Good!!

On the other hand, it’s hard to complain about getting light in the evenings again.  Getting home and being able to go out and do much needed yard work is more than a little exciting.

Spring is full of mixed blessings, I guess.  Flowers are blooming!  Trees are budding!  There’s pollen flying everywhere and fitful allergies to prove it!

Now that we’re able to get into the storage closet, I’ve pulled out my work gloves and clippers and gone to town on different plants in our yard.  I spent somewhere between three and four hours out in the yard on Saturday.  Justin helped me get the major trimming done on the crape myrtle trees, but I went back and did a little more clean-up there to make them look more tidy. 

The pampas grass felt the sharp cut of my trimmers, but it fought back nearly as effectively.  That stuff is sharp!  By the time I got those plants down as low as I dared and filled up the trash can with all of last year’s growth, my arms looked like I’d lost a fight with a feral cat.  Add to that my allergies to grass.  I had long, red, puffy scratch marks all up and down my arms.  It was so bad that even aloe stung instead of being soothing.

I raked up much of last year’s leaves and trimmed the grass down to a uniform length and pulled weeds.  I found a spider with a thorax the size of the first part of my thumb and screamed like the scaredy-cat girl that I am.  I cleaned the old ashes from the fire pit.

I still need to move the bikes and get the leaves back there and behind the a/c unit, and now that I know how to trim the bushes at the back of the yard, I need to go back there with my clippers and give them some serious attention.

And that’s all just at the back of the house!  At the front, I need to pull leaves, trim bushes, re-mulch the garden, plant flowers, and pull weeds.  And the side yard will involve cutting down two trees that have a blight and need to be removed.

So by the time I quit last Saturday, the back yard looked a lot better, but I could barely move.  And I obviously have a lot more to do.  I’m enjoying myself, though.  It’s fun!  Okay, not the spider bit.  And not the pampas grass allergy bit.  But getting it all looking so nice and getting outside in the sun and the fresh air and feeling like I know what I’m doing and that I can make my house look fresh and pretty for spring?  That part is awesome.

The phone number is Justin’s Skype phone number, if you have it. It should look very similar to my cell phone number, just the middle three digits being different. I’m not going to put it up here because I don’t want it to get grabbed by some spammer, but if you don’t have it, let me know. I’ll probably be calling most of you in the next several days anyway.

PHONE! I’M SO EXCITED!!