HoundBlog

Back to work today — you know that’s a four letter word 😛

Our Great Plains project deadline is fast approaching and we still have some obstacles to hurdle with it. Traci called me in a panic because her integration stopped pulling in taxes, but we got that resolved and everything is smooth there. I’m waiting on logistics to get me a clean list of new part numbers — they sent me a list of over 3000 parts, but there are a lot of duplicates which I can’t upload as the descriptions and/or costs are different. They’re going to have to clean up the list and resend it to me before I can put them in the system. In the meantime, I’m continuing to work on pulling reports that everyone wants to see from the new system to match the ones we had on the old system. It’s both easier and more difficult.

GP has some nice reporting tools, but their table structure is so doggone un-userfriendly that counters the ease of using the tools! Oh well, it will all come together in the end.

Only have 3 days to work this week as I’m taking Friday off as a vacation day and Ken and I are headed to Pinehurst for a dog show. I’m hoping it won’t be blistering hot there, but since it usually IS blistering hot, I won’t be surprised if it is.

Ken may get to go to Daytona Beach for a few days. BMW is sending teams of 12-14 people down there to test drive some of the cars on the track — why Daytona I don’t know, but we are not to reason why 🙂 I’ll miss him while he’s gone, but know it’ll be a nice break for him from working like he has been all year this year.

Enough for today.

Love,

Margaret

Boy was it hot today! Started the day off by trying to do some of the trimming around the house with the weed eater. Could not get it to advance the string and when the existing string got down to about 1″, I put it away and dragged out the push mower. I still need to pull up all the grass in the canna lily patches, but that will have to wait for now.

Did any of y’all have June bugs in April? We did. The dogs feasted on them for weeks until the temperatures dropped and they disappeared. Now that it’s warmed back up again, I’ve been concerned that we’ll see another “outbreak” of them and they’ll eat all my roses and newly sprouting lilies, but so far, I haven’t seen any. The butterflies are out in abundance, though. I saw a lot of yellow ones and one or two aqua colored ones. I wanted to get a picture of those, but by the time I had more batteries for the camera, they had disappeared. I did get a photo of a white one. These all look just exactly alike — the size, markings, etc. Just the base color of the butterfly is different I think I read somewhere that the white one was something significant (like one sex or the other), but I don’t remember for sure.

Janet came down and I took her to the daylily lady’s (Barbara) house. We spent 3-1/2 hours there pouring over her flower beds and her books on the different dayliliy varieties she has. Janet is creating some new beds at her house and wanted a color schemed set of daylilies for them. She bought one called “Tears of Love” to go on Bailey’s grave. I can’t wait to see the beds when she finishes them and they are blooming. She was so generous and shared some of her purchases with me, so now I have a few new lilies to add to my flower bed, too. I can’t wait for them to begin blooming!

Be sure to check out my nephew, Colin’s blog site — I’ve added a link to it over on the right. He takes some AWESOME photographs and you can literally spend hours looking through all his album pages. He has been asked to put on a show of his photography in August. I wish I was closer to St. Louis so I could go see it. I also wish he could come and take some pictures of the Whippets running. I think he would capture some special shots if he would.

Have a great day!

Love,

Margaret

Today is my 55th birthday. What a day it has been!

Ken had to go to work this morning and the plan was that he would get home around 2:00 and we would go to Greenwood and choose and purchase paint for the outside of the house and then go eat at Red Lobster. I had arranged with my friend and neighbor, Charlotte to go to Traveler’s Rest to look at a litter of Chinese Crested puppies that this lady wanted me to evaluate for her, then meet my friend, Janet for lunch, so around 9:30, we left.

Got to Cheylene’s house and the puppies were gorgeous! We stayed nearly 2 hours talking and admiring and playing with puppies, then when it came time to leave she asked us which ones we were taking! Oh WELL! I hadn’t come prepared to go home with a puppy, but nevertheless, we ended up taking home 3 with us! A lovely black hairless male and a brown sable puff male and a brown sable puff female. They are named Saber, Teddy and Charlene.

At Janet’s we carried the crate into her house so the babies would be cool while we went to eat lunch. Janet handed me my gift which was a small flat package about 8″ x 6″. She patiently waited through our tale of our morning trip and then I opened my gift.

Oh dear! I’m afraid I cried something awful. It is the most beautiful gift she could have ever given me and what makes it even more special is that another set of friends had a hand in it’s creation.

It’s a book.

Not just any book, but one that’s photographs of Tara’s first ASFA field championship points run. The day before the course, Janet had said goodbye to Bailey a Whippet that she got from me about 10 years ago and sister to our Bridget. Bailey had developed bone cancer and it was aggressively attacking her body and she was in a lot of pain, so Janet made the heartwrenching but right decision to let her go. We encouraged her to go on to the coursing to get some distance from her sadness and I’m so glad she did. There are lovely photos of Tara running, waiting for the bunny and just hanging around with her sister, Scarlett and another whippet we bred, Rose, owned by the same lovely couple who own Scarlett. That day had a lot of highs and some lows peppered by comic relief in the form of Rose eating the headliner in Patrick’s car (well, maybe that wasn’t comic relief for Patrick) and a photo of an unusual run by a pair of Ibizian hounds. The last page of the book has 3 photos of Scarlett licking away Janet’s tears and underneath the photos Erin has written a quote from Willie Morris — “In my life I find that memories of the spriit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded.” followed by her own words “Sometimes the best moments happen when the dogs aren’t running at all, but kissing away a friend’s tears. This book is dedicated to all the whippets who have gifted us with sweet memories of the spirit.”

The beginning of the book is a poem I wrote that I dedicated to the three girls who made their debut that day on the coursing field. It goes like this:

Your eyes are lit with demonic light
The motor whirls and you take flight
You leap and soar your heart so free
You stretch, you turn with precise degree

Around the course you fly with glee
A poem in motion we all agree
It’s over too soon and you protest
Leaving the bunny to be repossesed

Other dogs must have their chance for glory
You bark and snap and voice your worry
You pull and tug and try your best
But Mom says “No, it’s time to rest”

“You’ll have another turn real soon
Just cool your jets — sing another tune!”
Trophies and ribbons mean naught to you
That white plastic bag’s all you want to accrue

When day is over and you’re homeward bound
You know you are one TIRED hound
You gave your all and did your best
Next weekend, though’s another contest!

Dedicated to Tara, Rose and Scarlett by Margaret Norkett

Ken and I did not go out to dinner — he’s just too tired and I was still stuffed from lunch. We talked about going out tomorrow night, but it will be a 10 hour day for Ken and his 15th in a row, so we’ll have to wait and see how he feels.

I came home to a phone call from my mother who began the conversation by saying “Fifty-five years ago today I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl” — needless to say, I cried again — what beautiful words to hear from your Mother and better than anything she could have purchased to give me! And I am so thankful that my Mom is still around to say them! I read on my blog where my sisters have wished me a Happy Birthday and feel that I am truly blessed. I have wonderful friends and a loving family — can anyone ask for more??

This is truly a birthday I’ll never forget!

Love to all,

Margaret

What a day! Started off going to breakfast with neighbor and friend, Charlotte Ross who bought my breakfast as a birthday gift (sweet lady!). Then on the way back home, we stopped at this lady’s house who had a sign in her yard for palm trees.

Now, this lady’s yard is absolutely gorgeous and I see her out on her lawnmower about every 3 days mowing this perfectly manicured lawn that has all these lovely plants everywhere. She sold daylillies last year and I kept meaning to stop and see them, but never made the time. Despite having a zillion things to do, we made the time today.

Oh MY GOD!! What gorgeous daylillies she has! Every color imaginable from the simple orange common lillies to one that looks like blueberry pie (no kidding!). I bought this one called Oriental Opulence which is a pale yellow with peach throat and fringed petals — I will post a picture it once it blooms (the one I bought already has some buds on it, so should bloom within the week). I also bought one called Barbara Mitchell which is a lovely shade of rose and as a gift, she gave me one called Love Gift — I don’t know what that one looks like, so when it blooms, it will be a surprise.  Keep a lookout here for photos of them. I would love to go back sometime and buy the blueberry one, but it was quite expensive — do you know some of these plants go for $500!!!???!!! I was amazed!

Came home and planted my lillies and then went off to get the van’s oil changed and buy dog food (imagine me having to buy dog food 😉 !  Then started on the house. Tigger and Butterfly had made confetti out of a magazine (thankfully an old one that really needed to be thrown out), so we vacuumed and cleaned carpets, did more housework type stuff and cleaned kennels. By then it’s 4:30 and time to feed the dogs and ourselves. Ken bought steaks for the grill, so I’ll get started on them here in just a minute. I think I’ll have a drink tonight– I’ve worked hard today and have earned it.

See you all tomorrow!

Hugs,

Margaret

I’m doing this from work ….sssshhhhhh don’t tell…. as I’ve been unsuccessful in uploading a picture to a post. So now that WebHSP has reset permissions on some folders/files, we’ll see if it works…..hold your breath

Oh LOOK!!!! It worked!!! Happy day!! Now you’ll see lots more pictures from me 😉

Hugs,
Margaret

Today’s work day started out a lot like yesterdays. UPS failure caused all internet to go down including E-Mail. The whole company went rabid.

Someone (name with held to protect the guilty — NOT ME) had the field entering data into one spreadsheet on the Xdrive — very bad policy there, so when the UPS went south, so did all that lovely information……I have a bunch of pi**ed off Area Managers who have been slaving away trying to enter inventory information into that spreadsheet. All because **SOMEONE** in logistics is too lazy to do one for each tech/warehouse. Enough griping about work — let’s move on to something positive.

Today is the beginning of a nice long weekend. I am so looking forward to it! I have so much work to catch up on not the least of which is housework- 🙁  -not my favorite to do by any means! It will get done, but I will be kicking and screaming the entire time :0

Sunday is my birthday. I turn double nickles. Most other landmarks to date have not bothered me that much, but this one is making me a little queasy. There is so much I haven’t done yet and so much I WANT to do! Things like write a book, learn a REAL programming language and become proficient in it or just finish my BA degree. The years are flying by to the point that the gentle breeze of my youth has turned into a tornado 🙂 My body is not co-operating in this venture either, with knees that are toast and other parts that have bloated or shrunk or are sagging like grandma’s front porch! No amount of calorie restrictions or low-fat, low-carb anything seems to be taking any significant amount of weight off. I need a fat-burner pill that REALLY works — come on medical science! You can do it!

On the topic of birthday, my sweet husband is buying me a wonderful birthday gift! New tires for my van! Now maybe I won’t have to put air in them every other day 😉 🙂 He’s such a great guy! I don’t know what I would do without him! I might just keep him another 24 years or so. What do you guys think?? I love him so much!

We go to Pinehurst next weekend for 2 days of shows there. Have the “Fab 4” entered and it’s a nice sized entry. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that we come away brides or grooms instead of bridesmaids or ushers 🙂

Love y’all

Margaret

What a day! Started out with a nearly flat tire that I had to pump up. No tire gauge, so just guessed if it was right.  Made it to work 1/2 hour late. Had to fix problems there with the database — deleted and added about 30 users — what a pita!

Came home to find pee in the dining room — probably Tigger as he HATES to get his feet wet and we had a rainstorm here sometime today. I hope the girls get him over that sissy behavior! 😉

Melted the top to the butter dish on the stove, then proceeded to burn my fingertip when I tried to scrape it off the burner — it’s numb now, but a nice blister has formed. We’ll see just how much that affects my typing tomorrow.

Eddie (my son for those of you who may not know I have a child) is leaving for Baharain next month. I know it’s not the end of the world, but a Mom can’t help but worry about her child going somewhere where there are a LOT of people who would just as soon shoot him as shake his hand. Try doing a Google search on Baharain!!! You get about 3 sites that you would want to visit — the rest are……well, let’s just say they are not family oriented. We are far from being prudes (what dog breeder is????), but holy cow!! Thankfully, he’ll only be there for 6 months, then he comes back to the Bahamas for a couple of months before heading off to his new duty station. We don’t know yet where that will be, but it’s doubtful that he’ll see sea duty so soon after being overseas.  He says he’ll be kept pretty busy and won’t have time to be led astray — I certainly hope that proves true.

 Tomorrow — that’s FRIDAY!! WOO HOO! and this is a long weekend to boot, so maybe I’ll get caught up on some sleep and all these scripting lessons I’ve gotten behind on while working on the HTML final project.

 Speaking of that — I can’t wait to get my grade (whatever it turns out to be) as I am dying to make the new pages public. I still have a lot of work to do on pedigree pages and one of the pages I made I didn’t include in the project, but think it is a nice addition. I discovered PSP will do image mapping, so have done a “pin up” board with different dog’s photos and if you click the photo, it will bring up their page — those are the ones I have to complete. I think it’s an original concept — the pin up board that is — as I haven’t seen anything like it on any other sites. I really love the collage I created for the page headers — the tribute pages all have the same header, but with a rainbow across it and that turned out nicely, too I think.

I discovered tonight that users can create their own log in and add posts, so if you’ll look down at the lower right hand corner right under ADMIN, you’ll see a link to register. Fill out the form and you’ll be sent a password to log in and add your own posts.

I’m not 100% sure I like this blog software. This dashboard doesn’t match the rest of it and I really wanted it all to fit into a theme. Oh well, what do I expect for free??

That’s enough rambling for now — see you around!

Hugs,

Margaret

Dowload this great PDF file that illustrates how to give CPR to dogs!

Dog CPR

One of the primary causes of skinny dogs and dogs who won’t eat is parasites. Whipworms, tapeworms and hookworms are very difficult to erradicate completely because of the life cycle of the worm. Paraciticides only kill adult worms and not the eggs or larvae. Fecal floats often miss hooks and whips because they are so small and, again, they only see the adult worms, so if you’ve just given your monthly heartworm preventative, you’ve killed that crop off, but the larvae and eggs are still in the dog’s body ready to hatch/morph into more. While most heartworm preventives have residual effect on heartworms, it’s not been proven to have the same on hookworms and whipworms and of course, does not work at all on tapeworms — those require a completely different treatment.

What I’ve started doing and what is WORKING for me is, when I first get a dog in for rescue, I deworm him/her with Safeguard, then repeat in 2 week increments for 2-3 months (depending upon how debilitated he/she was). If the dog is very thin as you are describing yours to be, I then put him/her on an every 3 months routine of Safeguard in addition to the heartworm preventive once the initial every two weeks routine is complete. Again, tapeworms require a completely different treatment — Safeguard doesn’t work on them, but I don’t find them to cause the weight loss and appetite loss that whips and hooks do.

There are no picky eaters here at all, although some started out that way. I feed a quality kibble with water and a dab of canned food added in as an enhancer and they get cookies daily and they get to pre-wash dishes every night — that’s the sum total of “people food” they get. 

Hookworms and Whipworms are impossible to remove from the environment, so your dog keeps on re-infesting himself with them every time he walks through the yard and then licks his feet. That’s why the repeat treatment is so important. Don’t give the Safeguard the same day (or week) that you give heartworm prevention. It’s best to give it 2 weeks after you’ve given heartworm preventive.

These deworming schedules have been run by both my own vet and another vet and they both say there should be no issues following it.

Have spent half the day trying to set up this blog page to suit my future theme for this website. It is not going as planned — colors are not updating, images are not pulling in. The so-called “tutorial” is useless without sound which seems to have gone south.

 Do I sound a bit bitter???? Well, only a little bit. At least the title is right.

 As Scarlett said “Tomorrow’s another day.”

Tags: lost posts, new address, wordpress upgrade