HoundBlog

Good morning — it IS still morning, although I’ll admit that most of it’s shot. Our day dawned clear but COLD! Brrrrr! At least the wind has died down. I thought we were going to blow away these past couple of days!

I saw daffodils blooming around town this week. I’m really ready for spring-like weather. It can rain, but let’s lose this cold! I really feel bad putting the dogs out when it’s 20 degrees outside. That just doesn’t seem fair to them. If I leave them up though, I worry about someone needing to go potty and either having to soil their crate (which most won’t do) or holding it until they feel like they’re about to bust which can’t be fun either. They all have houses with blankets or cedar shavings to nest in, so it’s not like there’s no way at all to get out of the wind and somewhere warm.

Yesterday I watched several guys dangle from the building across the commons from us cleaning windows. They’re doing our building today. No scaffold or anything, they’re dangling by some harness and whipping through the windows at lightning speed. Not my kind of job and yesterday’s wind had to have made it a real challenge, too. I know I saw one guy doing quite a bit of swinging. I would have been sick on my stomach if it had been me up there swaying in the breeze!

Well, guess I need to go heat up my lunch.

Take care!

Love to all,

Margaret

My son must be working days since he hasn’t commented on the blog this week. He always comments when he works nights as he must get bored. Pretty sad when you read your mom’s blog at work because you’re bored. Poor kid.

Gosh! Another month is almost shot. We even have an extra day. I am trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my extra 24 hours this year. I mean, it’s not often you have time handed to you on a platter. The only thing that would make it better would be if the extra time was on a weekend — since my extra 24 hours is on a Friday, I’ll have to spend part of it with my employer. Doing pretty much what I do every day anyway. I think leap years, you should get that extra day as a holiday — let’s all send our Congressman a letter demanding the Federal government mandate Leap Year Day as a holiday.

Speaking of holidays — reminder to self to request an “official” list of holidays from HR so I can make sure the company calendar is updated.

We had some crackerjack thunderstorms yesterday! I had 10 dogs crammed into my office all vying for the space at my feet under the desk until the pyrotechnics decided to end. Meanwhile, I’m watching out the window and 4 or 5 deer decided it was play time in the front yard. I tried to get photos of them bucking and kicking and whooping it up in general, but with all that was going on at my feet, I’m afraid I didn’t get any good shots.

We even lost power for a few minutes, then one of the crowd unplugged the modem and that took me 10 minutes to troubleshoot. Darn scaredy cat dogs! At least I wasn’t in the middle of something that caused aggravation to re-create. I ended up working until 5:30, though when I should have been done by 4:00. I should have docked their pay. Reminder to self – no cookies at bed time tonight for the naughty dogs.

Well, I’m sure you’re sick of all this nonsense, and I really need to get on with doing something worthwhile (like actually EARNING my paycheck), so will let you move on to other things. 😛 Don’t take any wooden nickels. (do they even make those anymore?)
Love to all,

Margaret

Morning all! Hope you’re all well and enjoying good weather!

Thought I would share these doves with you all this morning. They are pretty regular visitors. Every once in awhile they perch on the bird feeder, but are mostly content to root around under it for what the other birds throw down. I noticed my thistle feeder is empty, so will need to fill it once the sun is up. Can’t let those finches go hungry! I discovered that what I’ve been calling a purple finch is actually a house finch. They are similarly marked, but the house finch has more brown on the stomach and is displacing the purple finch in many areas of the US.

I know you all wanted that mini-lecture this morning 😛

I have a lady coming out Saturday to look at a dog. I have a lot of reservations about this one — not because I think she would be a bad home, but because she has a 15 year old dog and I don’t think getting a 2-3 year old active, playful dog is fair to the old one. We’ll see. It’s all going to depend on her dog.

Well, I suppose I should go boot up and get to work!

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning everyone! It’s Monday yet again and we’re on the last week of the month. We’re even getting an extra day this month, since this is a leap year. Don’t squander all that extra time on something frivolous like a massage or manicure!

Typical Monday for me — issues to be resolved. Mostly surrounding people who just can’t seem to get it when it comes to putting good data in. I tell them GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

Made the reservations for the chapel Friday night. So that’s finally done. Now I just get to concentrate on finding shoes to go with the dress and planning what we’re taking clothes-wise. I don’t want to end up taking enough clothes for two weeks, but with all we’re planning on doing, it looks like that might end up being the case 🙁

I also still need to get with the pet sitter and make sure she’s still got us on her calendar.

Busy, busy!

But for now, I need to get back to work.

Judy — pragmatic.

Love to all,

Margaret

Had a bad scare this morning – the entire website was down and when it came back up, I could not access the blog. I corrected most of it, but it still was throwing a “can’t connect to the database” error and somehow it managed to lose all my logins.

Thankfully, I was able to recreate those (although it limits them to 7 characters now where it didn’t use to) and adjust the file it looks at for that login data and I seem to now have the issue resolved.

Ken and I finally finished the golf video.  It was hilariously funny while we taped it, but I’m not sure that comes across nearly so well in the final product. You just had to be there to appreciate the total funniness.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PraFn1de5M

Camilla decided last night that my head would make a great perch and climbed up there to chew my hair for awhile. Other than she got a bit heavy after a bit, she was no trouble. No poop or anything 🙂 Ken took pictures, but they came out blurry and VERY orange. No doubt I had the setting for outdoors.

The lady came all the way from West Virginia yesterday and did take Bunny back with her. She was very nice and Bunny liked her. I think they will be pretty happy together.

It’s back to work tomorrow. I hope Ken doesn’t stay up too late tonight watching the race that didn’t get started til 2-1/2 hours late. He tapes them all, so I feel sure he won’t stay up TOO late, but perhaps a bit later than he should.

Guess I should go.

Love to all,

Margaret

Woo Hoo! Ken reported this morning that the tax refund is in the bank! I’m going this afternoon to pay off the Venture! How sweet it is!

Of course that just means another bill takes the place of that one to concentrate on paying it off, but it’s just one more check that doesn’t have to be written every month!

I have a crazy lady coming down from West Virginia tomorrow to see Cresteds. She’s 75 years old and her daughter is driving her (daughter must be about my age). She’s called me nearly every day about that dog. Jeez! I sure hope she decides she likes it once she gets here 😛 Anyway, that means extra effort in housecleaning in the morning. Not a pretty sight since it’s been raining the last 3 day. Oh well, maybe she’ll be partially blind as well as deaf….

That’s all that’s on tap for this weekend. I still have to call the chapel in Las Vegas. Ken’s going to kill me if I don’t get that done. There’s only 3 more weeks before we go and I didn’t realize it until I looked at a calendar today, but the Friday we come back is Good Friday, so we both have that off and therefore, will only be taking 4 days of vacation instead of 5. I still have to find a pair of shoes to go with the dress. I guess I had best get on the stick!

Oh — Becky — gregarious 🙂

Well, you’re caught up with us now, so love to all,

Margaret

Sorry I missed posting yesterday. I meant to write something last night, but just never found time to get to it, so you get me this morning, writing while one of my reports runs.

We’ve been trying to uncover the mystery of why my email crapped out over the weekend. I had no jobs get paged out to techs and the Clarify engine that reads the emails was just whirling around like a top but not going anywhere.

I’ve also been talking to our 3rd party vendor about installing a service pack. The consultant is trying to make it a bigger deal than I think it is. He wants me to have several database backups (why?) as well as a back up of the operating system (again, why?). I have to do some research on all this as it seems way too paranoid even for him.

Ken’s working Saturday, but not Sunday – he says he’s told his boss that he needs to have Sundays off as he needs some rest. I agree! Now if I can just convince him to do just that — at least for a few Sundays, maybe he’ll actually GET some rest!

Well, my job is finished, so I’ve got to run.

Love to all,

Margaret

Sorry to be so late today! I worked from home today and between this and that, couldn’t find a minute to write.

Sis asked about the bed-in-a-box, so to give you an update. I’m sleeping pretty good in it and although it took him a couple of weeks, Ken says he’s liking it too and sleeping well. It’s quite different than anything we’ve ever slept in before. I think the dogs are finding it warm as Taco Belle sleeps on top of the covers and Sebastian has quit sleeping in the bed at all unless there’s a storm going on outside.

I have a lady coming all the way from West Virginia Saturday to look at the adult cresteds. She’s 75 years old and lost her husband and 15 year old Yorkshire Terrier 3 years ago in July. She’s decided that she needs a companion (or two) and her granddaughter lives in Simpsonville and saw my ad in the paper for the puppies. Of course they were long gone when she called, but I told her about the adults and she’s called several more times asking questions about them. She sounds a bit batty, but sweet. Then I had another lady call this morning wanting a Whippet. She has a 15 year old whippet that she got from our old “pal” Lisa (remember the homeless person we gave a home to a few years ago??). Anyway, I don’t have any puppies and we’re not planning on breeding any of the girls this time around (both Butterfly and Delilah are in season right now), so that leaves me with only an adult whippet. We talked briefly about them and she’s going to get back to me later this week. She gave me her vets name so I could check up on her and it’s a vet that I have a  good relationship with, so if he says she’s a good home, I know she’s OK.

I’ve got to finish up the second video for the golf club. It was due the 8th and between the weather, Ken being sick and the dog show, there has been no opportunity to get it done. I’ve put together some clips and images and recorded some dialog for it, but it’s not nearly long enough — it’s supposed to be 3-5 minutes long and so far, it’s about 1-1/2 minutes. I just hope Ken can spare me some time over the weekend. It’s hard to do these when he’s supposed to be the one doing the review. I wish I had someone else’s voice to use for the dialog, too. It just won’t be as funny with my creaky old voice on it.

Well, that’s all the news about us for today! Hope you have a good evening!

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, the show was a bust for us as far as points were concerned. Although Ken and Tigger won their large class everyday, the closest we came to pulling off the points was on Saturday when Tigger was Reserve. Everyone was very complimentary about how Tigger and Ken looked and how well they worked together. And they WERE a good looking team even if I am a tiny bit prejudiced.

The health clinic went very well with the club making around 1700 on it and for once, the obedience trial yesterday had plenty of stewards and went very smoothly. I finished up around 1:30 and when I got home, Ken took pity on me and let me take a nap until around 7:00 pm last night. There were things I should have been doing around the house (like finishing up the laundry), but I was wiped out to be frank, so the opportunity to lie down and rest was too good to pass up. Of course he was ensconced in front of the t.v. watching the Daytona 500.  I know he told me who won, but I don’t remember now.

I had some lady call me from West Virginia about one of the crested adults I still have left to place. She’s coming all the way from WVa to get her. If she takes Bunny, that will leave only one to find a home for and I’m hoping this lady who trains and teaches obedience and rally will take her. We’ll see what happens.

It must have been pretty quiet while I was out since I didn’t come into but 3 emails and no phone messages. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

I’m sure I’ll find out once everyone is in this morning.

Gotta run.

Love to all,

Margaret

Short post this morning — hope to come back later with more information, so check back.

Today is the first day of the Greenville dog show cluster. Today is the only day I have a dog entered — Ms. Payne. Ken’s entered Tigger all 3 days and we’re both hoping for big things.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

———————————–

Well, we didn’t do so well today. Payne was third out of 3 and while Tigger won this huge open dog class, she gave the nod to the puppy.  Oh well, tomorrow is another day for Tigger and better luck next time.

Love to all

Margaret