Self Sufficient Pets!

When we went to New York in June my nephew, Austin, was watching our cats for us. He did a great job and I trusted him to do it well. However, they were planning on joining us in NY for the long 4th of July weekend. I didn't want to find someone else to watch the cats during that time so I decided to try to make them self sufficient for those four days.

This is the water fountain I bought on amazon.com. It holds enough water for my cats for about a week. Lately my dogs have been drinking out of it too, but I won't complain because it still lasts about three days with two dogs and three cats drinking out of it.

This is the automatic cat feeder. I can pore a month's worth of cat food into it, set the program to feed the cats, and don't worry about them again. You can set it to feed 1-4 times per day, 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups of food per feeding. I love it!

Here's our cat door in the window. You can buy one on amazon.com here for about $125. Brian built this one for me from a $20 cat door from Lowe's, a piece of scrap wood, and a little bit of paint. The bonus is that the dogs are using this too. Now all five of my animals can let themselves in and out whenever they want to.

My dogs really don't eat very much. I fill their food bowl every 2-3 days. I have to add water to the resevoir on the fountain every three days, and I have to feed my cats once a month. It's all so simple!

Now, if I could only teach them how to handle traffic jams at the door ....

If You Give a Kid a Camera

You get a bunch of stupid pictures.

The end.

If You Give a Girl a Kitty

Those of you that are parents have surely read the book by Laura Numeroff called If You Give a Pig a Pancake. For those of you who haven't read it, it goes something like this: The little girl gives the pig a pancake. Then the pig asks for syrup, gets sticky, needs to take a bath, asks for bubbles & toys, gets homesick for her farm, wants to visit her family, take pictures, etc etc ... It goes on and on until at last they are building and decorating a tree house. The wallpaper makes the pig all sticky, which reminds her of syrup. The last pages wrap up the story like this: "And chances, are, if she asks you for some syrup, she'll want a pancake to go with it." It's a cute story. Kids love it for the silliness, teachers love it because it helps teach sequencing and predicting. Whatever. Anyway, my brother and his girlfriend gave me this cat for my birthday.

He's cute, isn't he? I like him enough that he has a special spot right next to the front door of my house. He's the first thing people will see when they come up my front steps. Well, after I took this picture I was noticing how dirty the front porch was. So I decided to power wash it. It turned out great! The only problem was that it made the back deck look dingy. So I power washed that too. Then I decided that I needed to paint my rocking chairs because next to the cleaned up porch, they looked faded and plain.

After my porch rockers were painted I decided that I better stain the Adirondack chairs that my Uncle Jeff made for me. I didn't want them to get old and dirty looking like my rockers had.

I was very pleased with how they turned out. The only problem was, I couldn't really see them from my front yard or from the street because the bushes were too overgrown. So I enlisted the help of Kenny and we trimmed the bushes. They are huge and I couldn't quite get to the branches on the very top so I made him climb up into the middle with a hack saw to finish the job for me.

before

after

right in the middle!

The finished look was nice:

I was really happy with it. But then I remembered that I still have a couple of weeks of summer vacation left. I decided to stain my entire privacy fence. Right now I am 1/6 done, have a sunburn, am covered in bug bites, have a stiff neck, have a sore wrist, and have already gone through five gallons of stain. What in the world was I thinking?!?

It's looking pretty good so far. I went to Lowe's to buy more stain today and found the cutest plant to put in my kitty. I hope he's happy on his cleaned up porch while I am out in the sun working on my latest project!

Mein Sampson Too Lieben

Thursday would have been Sammy's 10th birthday. He was born on July 21, 2001. We were living in post housing on Fort Meade, Maryland. I had a preschooler, a toddler in diapers, a 6 month old puppy (Susie), and a 6 month old kitten (Rosie). We moved on average of every 6-10 months at that point in our lives. I did not want another dog! I did not want another responsibility. I have to say, the argument discussion about whether or not to even purchase Sammy was a big one. It ended like this: "I don't want another dog, but we aren't getting anywhere with this argument so you might as well do what you want!!!" Before the last word was even fully out of my mouth Brian walked out the door with the checkbook and came home with a puppy.

When this picture was taken I didn't even really like him yet.

 He ate toys, furniture, and diapers. He ate bicycle seats. He ate Susie's poop. And then he'd come inside and burp the most disgusting poop scented burps. Yeah, I didn't really care for him.

This is Sammy last month before we had to say good bye to him.

He had cancer in his bladder and his head was caving in on one side. The two different veterinarians we took him to told us that it was likely caused by the muscles in his head atrophying. Unfortunately this progressed rapidly and made it painful for him to eat. He tried to stay happy and please us up until the end, but saying good bye to him was the best way to end his suffering.

His official AKC name was Mein Sampson Too Lieben. Our other dog's AKC name was Mein Susie Q Lieben. In American/German it means roughly "I love my Susie Q." Sammy's dad's name was Sampson so we thought it would be cute to name him Sampson Too ... like he was also Sampson. Since it rhymed with Susie Q it seemed to fit. Anyway, his name was very appropriate. But the time he was two years old I was in love with him. By the time he was four I couldn't imagine our family without him. By the time we said good bye I was so glad that I lost that argument in the summer of 2001.

RIP Sammy

July 21, 2001 - June 17, 2011

Busy as a Bee

The post with Kenny in his underwear was on my very first day of summer vacation. Right now that seems like it was a million years ago. I have stayed extremely busy, but in a good way. That evening Brian came home for his R & R visit from Afghanistan. We had the best staycation ever! As soon as he left the boys and I went to New York to visit my family. That was also busy and fun. We were back in NC just after the 4th of July weekend and I dove straight into several projects. One of my "projects" for next week is to do a few blog posts about the things we've done. So just think of this as a little summary/preview. Until then ........

At Least He Listened This Time

This photo is intentionally very blurry. I took it from my bedroom window and focused my camera on the blinds instead of on Kenny. I did that because he's in his underwear! Why is he in the back yard in his underwear, you ask? Well, it's because he actually listened to what I told him! He is spray painting a bird house. Before he went outside I said, "Don't get any paint on your good clothes. You might want to change into something different." Well, apparently it's faster & easier to just take your clothes off for your painting session than it would be to go find different clothes to wear. At least he listened to me!

Living up to Expectations

When I first started blogging I told everyone I knew about it, put a link in my signature line in my emails, and advertised it on my myspace account. Then I started working, switched from myspace to facebook, and quit blogging. Now I am trying to get back into it, but I am not telling anyone. I know that when people have a goal, say losing 10 pounds or quitting smoking or whatever, that they're supposed to have a support network of friends to keep them on track. But I am not a support network kind of gal and this blog isn't something that is going to keep me from dying of lung cancer or a heart attack. So ... I am just doing it to do it. I am writing for me and for anyone who happens to decide to look. And if I keep it up and my friends and family start noticing then that's great. But if not, then I guess I won't have to worry about posting new blogs and not living up to anyone's expectations!!!

Live and Learn

Today while I was checking out at the grocery store Chase found a dime and a penny on the tray in the Coinstar machine. Instead of putting them in his pocket, he put them into the machine. The machine then cointed his coins for him and gave him a ticket to redeem at the customer service desk. If you've ever used one of these machines before you know that they charge a fee if you want cash. You can use the machine and get 100% of your money back if you turn it into a gift card to certain places like Lowe's or Amazon.com. Chase wanted cash back for his dime & penny. He got 10 cents. Lesson learned!

Animal Magnet

Sometimes I feel like an animal magnet! We already have three dogs, three cats, a stray cat that lives on our front porch, an aquarium that has four fish and a snail, and a science experiment with something that used to be a mealworm and is supposedly in the pupa stage before becoming a beatle. I think it might be dead, but I am not really sure. Anyway, last week Kenny and his cousin Austin came home with this puppy. At first they both tried to convince me that one of our families should keep him. Then they wanted to walk all over the neighborhood looking for his owners. I let them check several houses near where they first saw him, but eventually just made them leave him right where they found him. I know that wasn't the best thing to do, but I am just a little overwhelmed when it comes to animals. If you look at my post with pictures from 2010 you'll see that my boys found a puppy not that long ago. Does this happen to everyone or am I just an animal magnet (aka sucker for lost pets)?!?

The Junk Drawer

Do you think I really need all of this stuff? I don't! I don't even know how this happens. Every single time we move I clean out the junk drawer. I throw away pens, pencils, notebooks, markers, old batteries, etc. We move a lot so the junk drawer in my house should not look this junky. The funny thing is that we have only been in this house a year. When we first moved in I distinctly remember putting one pair of scissors, one roll of tape, one small post it note cube, and about 10 pens in this drawer. Then today I opened it to try to find something I needed and this is what I found! Where does all of this crap come from anyway?!?!?!?

Gettin' All Fancy

First of all, please forgive the poor quality of the photo. It was nearly dark and it was raining. To top it off, Kenny was the photographer. He was trying to capture a picture of me to put in our Photo of the Day Album on facebook. I am rarely in the pictures because I am usually the person behind the camera! Anyway, this is our fancy grill. That is my fancy grill set up. And the hat on top of my head ... well, that was serving as my fancy umbrella! I am not a big fan of grilling food. Don't get me wrong -- I love to eat grilled food! I just don't know how to actually do the work. It might not help that we move so often that I refuse to spend more than $15 on our grill. Maybe some day when we are done moving I can get a real grill. And by real grill I mean something with more than three legs that would prohibit my mother from spilling grilled vegetables all over the deck. But that's another story for another day.

Another Run Around the Sun: 2010 Version

Happy New Year's! We were at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas. Brian arrived home from Iraq about 4 hours before we rang in the new year. What a great way to start fresh!

February: Time to pack it up and move across the country again! Brian left a little before the boys & I did because we wanted to finish our school year in Texas.

March: Dog for a day ... we found this little guy outside our house one night. We tried and tried to find his owner, but it seemed that he had been dumped by someone that couldn't find homes for puppies. We ended up giving him to a friend of a friend.

April: Three kids in braces!

May: The boys left Texas a little earlier than I did so that they could spend some guy time with their dad.

June: There's a cow in my back yard. The only clue that I am not in West Texas any more is the green stuff all over the place.

July: This was taken on vacation at Kure Beach. Check out Chase's pose. It's the best!

August: First day of school. I am not sure I have seen Chase this happy since then. He really doesn't like his new school.

September: Playing football in the back yard with their dad. I just love Kenny's expression in this picture!

October: Here are the boys carving pumpking and being silly with their cousins.

November: We all went home to NY for Thanksgiving this past year. It was crazy and busy and hectic and WONDERFUL! I am so glad we were all together for once.

December: Who says parents can't play in the snow any more?!?

When Inspiration Hits

I used to be very good about keeping this blog updated. I posted silly things the kids did, funny things that happened to us, photos from vacations, strange happenings in West Texas, etc. It was a good outlet for me and a great way to keep up with our family and friends that we seem to be constantly leaving behind. Then, I got a job. And then I stopped blogging. That was the 2009-2010 school year. I was a 5th grade teacher in a wonderful school. I loved every minute of it, but I was very busy. Now it is nearly the end of the 2010-2011 school year. We have moved across the country (again) and I am teaching kindergarten in a tiny private school. I actually have time to do things that I didn't have time to do before....like breathe. My blog has been hanging around in the back of my mind for a while. It seemed to have been replaced by facebook. But then something happened. It was so silly and funny that the very first thought I had was, "I wish I was still blogging!" I was taking Chase to school and he said something about the tiny, run down church that we pass every day.

It's called the New Life Deliverance Center.

Well, Chase just casually mentioned that if I wanted to adopt a baby that maybe I should stop by there one day after school. He was remembering that we had Kenny at a birthing center in Texas and he assumed that the New Life Deliverance Center was a place that new lives were delivered. Too bad it couldn't be that easy! I'd have five more kids by now!