HoundBlog

Spent most of yesterday with Kitty.

Ken bought Matt’s car from her and she brought it down to BMW. I met her there and drove her back to Asheville. We stopped at this cute little cafe in Fletcher for a late lunch, then went on to her house. She wanted me to take pictures of her puppies (which I did). They are some real cuties! Very well mannered and cuddly — Suzel and her girls did a great job of raising them. They will make wonderful pets, therapy dogs and have some potential as show dogs, too. All in all, a really nice package for whomever they end up with.

Talked to Yvonne on the way home from Asheville. She is still planning on going to the Bahamas next week for her friend’s birthday. I sure hope the storm doesn’t take any turns. She needs the break from her routine and some adult stimulation. She is having trouble finding someone to take the oppossums and I sure hope the wildlife rescue lady takes them off her hands as I believe they are getting to be quite a handful. I wish I were close enough to get them from her, but just don’t have time to run down there before she leaves. She said she’s also trying to get the house ready to sell. I knwo what a job that is! Still, it’s a really nice house and they shouldn’t have much trouble selling it.

Well, I have a really long to-do list today and I had best get on it. I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

Love to all,

Margaret

There has been a lot on NPR about 9/11 anniversary that’s coming up in a few days. A lot of it makes me cry and feel the devastation I felt when this occurred 5 years ago all over again. The woman who was interviewed and told about her ex-husband calling her from the 137th floor to tell her he still loved her and to tell the children good bye and that he loved them just ripped my heart out.

One of the things that is most apparent, however, is the stark contrast between how the people of New York coped with this disaster as compared to how the people of New Orleans have coped with their disaster. Perhaps the scale of the two is somewhat different, but a year post 9-11 compared to a year post-Katrina have the New Yorkers looking like strong, back-atcha folks and Orleaners looking like whiny, beggars of hand outs. And it’s not like there hasn’t been money sent to New Orleans, but what have they DONE with their money? Not much. Certainly they have not rebuilt any significant part of the town. The majority of those who were displaced are staying right where they landed and those cities are now coping with higher crime, more kids in their school systems and trying to absorb those who want to work into their work force. Houston has done a remarkable job of this as an example. Meanwhile, New Orleans murder rate is as high as it was pre-Katrina with a police force 1/4th the size. I wouldn’t point out the political differences between the two cities….but — NY is primarily Republican while New Orleans is primarily Democratic. I’m not saying Republicans are “better”, but it sure seems like they get more done in a shorter space of time. Maybe the US economy as a whole was “better” during the Clinton administration, but then again, Bill did not have either 9-11 OR Katrina during his watch. He only had Monica, Jennifer and Paula.

Enough about politics — and that was probably too much, but I had a few things to get off my chest. 

I heard that Star went on her first visit as an official Therapy Dog and was a huge hit at the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital. Way to go Star!!! In an unofficial visit, she did a TD visit on her dad, Steve, before he was released from the hospital.

I continue to get great reports about Lucas from his new home. He’s playing at the dog park now and sleeping in their bed. They seem to be extremely happy with him.

Ashley’s move has been delayed again. The workers are not through with the renovations to the house and Kaye quite thoughtfully does not want to subject him to all the chaos of strange men coming in and out and having everything being topsy-turvy. I told her I would take him with me next week to the new dog park opening. She’ll be there, too and will get to see him that way.

Speaking of the new dog park opening — that’s going to be a day of logistical planning on my part as I have a seminar to go to the same day. I hope to be able to get to the seminar and sign up for the one I’m most interested in and then go to the dog park for an hour or so, then slip back to the seminar, but will have to play it by ear. Janet won’t be there as she is going to Georgia for a temperament test (no not her temperament, the dogs :LOL:) If it rains, the dog park opening will be put off until the next Saturday, but I’ll be in Atlanta, so won’t make the rain date. Secretly, I’m hoping for rain, but that probably won’t happen.

Well, I feel like I’ve written a book. Need to run and get Ken off to work.

Love to all,

Margaret 

This ECon thing is turning into a royal pita! The programs keep freezing up and then the jobs don’t get dispatched. “Deleted” means “flagged deleted” not REALLY deleted and no longer there, so when you have re-entered the information, the system doesn’t skip over the deleted record to the “live” one, but hangs up on the deleted record which is causing major problems. I’m about ready to tell them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, but the potential for this to save us big bucks and speed up our overall process is just too great to ditch it just yet. I sure hope the company will get cracking on these issues!

Ken’s schedule is supposed to be changing to 5-8 hour days per week. Of course, he’ll still work overtime nearly every day as well as Saturdays and most Sundays, but “officially” he’ll have a shorter work day. I think it dickers with his vacation time, too, but don’t quote me. I find it all rather exasperating, but that just may be because I’m already frustrated by my own job.

No news from Janet, Millicent, Kaye or the Pattersons lately. Think about all of them every day along with family and other friends.

Hummingbirds are getting fat and ready to fly off for the winter. Haven’t seen the Rufous in several days, so perhaps they have already moved on. The Ruby throats are still pretty active and keep the feeders emptied on a regular basis. I love the new feeder I bought. It’s so pretty!

Cardinals are looking plump, too. I see the adolescents at the feeders along with Mom and Dad. I guess they will soon plumage out to their adult colors and move on to their own territory. Haven’t seen any Goldfinches in awhile, but have seen the ones with the red head and purple bodies. Lot’s of Chickadees and Mourning Doves as well are coming to the feeders.

Well, break time is over and I need to get back to work.

Love to all,

Margaret

Oh dear! My poor blog has been so neglected of late! Well, for a good reason (sort of).

Ken and I left August 30th for Raleigh and 4 days of shows. Our main objective was to get some down-time and we did accomplish that since it rained the first two days, so we huddled in the camper and slept or watched tv or read. I didn’t even take my laptop which doesn’t have internet access anyway, but I still could have played games or such on it.

We had hoped to possibly finish Butterfly (didn’t happen) and maybe even get some points on Oscar (that didn’t happen either). There was an all-breed match on Friday and a Chinese Crested specialty match on Saturday and we hoped to get some ring experience in for our puppies (that DID happen). We entered Tigger and Payne in the Friday match. Ken let Stephanie show Tigger and while she did a fine job of showing him, he was just too much puppy for her and cut up a lot. He was 3rd. Payne did well in her class and also finished 3rd. Saturday, we entered our two 5month olds, Charlotte’s litter sister and Payne in the specialty match. The two powderpuff babies both finished 3rd in their HUGE sweepstakes classes (9 in Teddy and Saber’s and 6 in Cheyenne’s), so we were very happy with those placements. Alas, Saber did not want to walk on leash for Ken and didn’t place. Payne won her sweepstakes class. Regular classes saw pretty much a repeat of sweeps as far as the little ones were concerned, but Payne was 2nd in hers instead of first. All-in-all, I think it was a good start for the pups and good experience for Payne and Tigger. Butterfly did manage to pull off one point on Monday by going Best of Winners. That now gives her 7 points with one of the two required majors. She’ll be going to Atlanta the 22nd through the 24th for the specialty. Keep your fingers crossed for her!

Came home to an ant invasion, so have to get some ant repellant or killer. They got in my dog food and we had to throw out nearly 50 lbs of food — what a bummer! :'(

Heard from Janet — Steve is home from the hospital and doing really well! I’m so glad!

Millicent has had her first chemotherapy treatment and is doing well from that. Let’s hope the second one goes as well.

Well, I think that pretty much catches you all up on our news. Hope everyone is doing well — Colin — is Becky back to normal after her surgery? I need to go check out your blog.

Love to all,

Margaret
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Janet’s husband, Steve is doing great after his hip replacement surgery and he’s been moved to Roger C Peace for physical therapy. He’ll be there 5 days. He got to have his personal therapy dog visit him in the hospital (that would be Tara who passed her TDI exam a couple of months ago) and he’ll get more visits from her while he’s in RCP. Janet reports that the visit made a big difference in Steve’s outlook as there had been some problems with his bed not working properly and with the door to the bathroom being too small to admit the walker, so he was having to “hold it” and was stressed out over these issues.

I got photos from Barbara of Lucas lying on their bed and of him looking out their sliding glass door at the river behind their house. It looks like he’s really landed well this time and he’s proving to be a great dog for them.

I got Ashley’s angel collar from Suzel yesterday — it is adorable and the color looks great on him. I haven’t heard from Kaye yet on his official “gotcha” date, but I know she won’t let a day go by more than it takes for the workmen to clear out of her house and her to get it straightened up.

We go to Raleigh next weekend for 4 days of dog shows. The numbers look promising, so if we’re lucky, there’s a possibility that Butterfly could finish her championship at these shows. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

I rewrote the poem I dedicated to Wendy and will submit that to the writing contest.

Got to go—work calls.

Love to all,

Margaret

Got my assignment 3 completed on my lesson last night and submitted it. Also completed assignment 4 which was the last one for that lesson. I can now shrink and grow images, text boxes and anything else I want to (except my own body — which is a bummer — well, let me modify that statement — I can GROW my own body, but can’t shrink it for love nor money :LOL: ).

Still working on Econ — lots of tasks that one has to do. Still have to develop the auto billing for Sharp and Arco. Those will be some challenges.

Steve came through his surgery just fine. The operation didn’t take but an hour and 45 minutes which I thought was really fast! He was up and walking by the afternoon. I know he’ll have a long recovery, but think he will feel much better now this is behind him.

Got to run. WORK!

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning! I hope your day is going to be a great one.

My friend Janet’s husband, Steve, is going in for hip replacement surgery. Poor guy… not only needs the hip replaced, but the knee as well, but they want to do it in two separate operations.  I will go at lunch to let the dogs out to potty and give them some moral support as they are not used to their momma being gone for the whole day.

Spent Saturday running around doing “honey-dos”. Had to take Ken’s truck to the service station that does tire repairs to get a nail removed and a plug or patch put on. While they did that, I ran two dogs to the vet’s, took them home, then took my van down to the oil change place to have the oil changed and transmission serviced. Stopped at the Family Dollar for cleaning supplies and the pet store for bird food and dog cookies, then finally back home to finish up laundry and clean up the kitchen and sweep/mop the floors. It was teeth cleaning day for the dogs — something they are not fond of having done, so it’s a bit of a struggle and is especially hard on my back. By the time Ken got home at 3:00 pm, I was pretty exhausted, but couldn’t stop. He had bought a new pen for the dogs on his way home, so we put that together, cleaned the runs and fed the dogs, then cleaned ourselves and he took us out to Red Lobster for dinner. We both collapsed when we got home from dinner.

Sunday was a bit lazy for me as all I did was finish up the laundry, groom a couple of dogs, and do 3 of the 4 assignments for my lesson. Got stuck on the 3rd assignment, so needed to stop for awhile and let it sink in. Ken got home from work about 1pm and flopped on the couch for a nap. I read a book while he napped. We ordered take out from the Mexican Restaurant in Honea Path, and while I went to pick it up, Ken fed the house dogs. I fed the kennel dogs after we ate, then went to struggle with assignment 3 some more. Still don’t have it working exactly right, so haven’t submitted it yet.

Did I tell you I finally got my DTS job to work on the ECon project?? Well, I have. Now I have to complete the coding of what to do with the information gathered by the DTS job, but that’s kind of the easy part.

Have a great day!

Love to all,

Margaret

Good Morning everyone!

We’ve made it to another Friday. And this one is extra special because it’s also payday — not that I’ll see much of said pay once everyone with hand held out get’s their cut 🙁 Oh well, that’s what makes the world go around.

Nothing is on tap for this weekend. Just same old stuff of cleaning, clothes washing, dog grooming and bird cage cleaning. Anyone want to volunteer for any of these tasks?? No?? Well gee whiz! Guess that means I’ll have to do it all myself again! Bummer!

I do want to get going on my writing project. I’ve had some ideas floating around that I want to begin putting down on paper to see how they flow. I may ask you all for input on which piece might be best to submit.

If you haven’t checked out Colin’s blog lately, you should. He has some great photos up of his lap with Lance in his photo albums. I have to admit that I had to do some searching for them, but they are there.

I’ve had a different species of humming bird coming to my feeders lately. It is larger than the ruby-throated ones that are common to the area and is a mossy green rather than the irridescent of the ruby-throats. I think it’s probably a rufous hummingbird as what research I’ve been able to find indicates that they do stray from their normal territories on occasion. With it being as dry as it is in the west, I would imagine that’s why we’re seeing some here in the east. They are described as fiesty which definitely describes this one’s attitude. If I haven’t filled the feeders lately, it chit-chit-chit’s at me through the window of the office. It’s run off the ruby-throats that vied for the two feeders hanging from the window, so I may have to hang one of them further away so they don’t get starved out.  I did get a couple of photos of it, but they are not great quality — I need to wash the window :P.

Well, got to run! Time to do some work.

Love to all,

Margaret

Lucas’ new owners seem to be very happy with him. They took him to the dog park yesterday, but he didn’t want to run or play with the other dogs — he stayed right with them on the bench. They were a bit disappointed in that behavior, but they need to give him time to adjust to the changes in his life.

Ashley is home from the hospital and acts as if nothing had been done, although it’s VERY apparent that something WAS done if you know what I mean. We’ll gradually get him used to being a housedog over the next couple of weeks.

We’re planning to go to Raleigh in a couple of weeks for 4 days of shows. That will give Ken 5 days of time off from work – the longest break he’s taken in months. The next long break will come over Thanksgiving as we’re planning to go to Montgomery, AL for shows there. He needs the time off!

Need to run. Am still struggling with Econ although I do have one part of it working properly now.

Love to all,

Margaret

Just a quick one today.

Heard from Lucas’ new owners last night — he’s doing well. He’s being a bit of a velcro dog which is to be expected with all the changes, but I think he will revert back to his confident, happy self within a month at least.

Ashley went for the big snip yesterday. He’s doing well and will come home later this morning.

Suzel is making collars special for these two boys. She sent me pictures of the fabric for the one for Lucas — I think his new owners will be tickled pink with it. She has to go looking for something suitable for Ashley, but I’ve given her a theme to work with, so I know she’ll find something outstanding. She’s quite a good shopper 🙂

Didn’t get ECon finished. I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time with it. I will get it done, though.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Love to all,

Margaret