HoundBlog

Got Randy’s album working like I want it to and added some pictures that Eddie sent last night of our leave-taking on 6/18/06. Randy’s picture album is HERE I hope you enjoy the little guy as much as I do.

I also made one of the photos Eddie sent of his post — there aren’t many but I’ll add to the album as he sends me more. You can find that one HERE. He said in the email to me that the one is of a super mall where the Saudis come to shop. It’s supposed to have all kinds of fantastic stores in there. Maybe he’ll send photos of the shops and people.

Went to the thrift strore this morning to see if they had any toys for the dogs. They did and at 5 for $1 — my kind of deal!! Bought $2 worth and the dogs are happily playing with them now. At least they aren’t tearing up books, magazines and papers 👿

Heard from a couple of folk regarding Snoball — one asked me if she was a PBGV — she’s not — just your garden variety cocker/poodle mix judging by her coat and temperament. She’s cute and smart as a whip, but has the low self esteem that many backyard bred cockers have. We’ve worked on that since she’s been here and she’s much more confident now.

Ken will be home from work soon, so I had best quit messing with the computer and do some stuff around the house.

Love to all,

Margaret

Downloaded Colin’s suggestion for an album and am working on tweaking that around to work like I want it to. I’ve uploaded an album, but it’s not working exactly right, so when you try this link, you may get a page not found error when trying to move forward through the thumbnails. The link is Randy’s album. If you get an error, just hit your back button until you get to the page of all thumbnails and click the top right corner where it says page 2 (etc). You can click the thumbnails to see larger pictures, but the software optimized them a lot and they’re a bit pixellated in some instances. Since I didn’t take the photos myself, I don’t know what resolution they were to begin with and some look like they were taken with a camera phone, so the quality of those is not great. The subject matter, however, is WONDERFUL! He sure is a cute little guy! I love all the facial expressions he comes up with. He obviously is NOT camera shy a bit 😛

I really put the album for Eddie who is in Baharain so he can see his little guy from time to time. Eddie’s in the process of getting set up there, but he does have a working e-mail address which I’ll give any of you who would like it. I know he would love to hear from family and friends while he’s there. He says he’s real busy getting indoctrinated to his new job and learning to cope with the heat. Y’all keep him in your prayers! Thanks!

Aurora’s week at Kamp Kemar is coming to an end. I’m afraid she learned some not-wonderful new things while here. She and Tigger have enjoyed way too much trashing magazines and newspapers. I hope Angela doesn’t murder me when she gets her back. I dread having to tell her this wonderful news :'(

Speaking of Tigger — I have to find time to take new pictures of him. He sure has matured over the last month. He’s still VERY much a puppy and looks it, but the future adult is peeking through and I’m thrilled with what I sense as his potential.

Well, I need to get back to work.

Love to all,

Margaret

Tried to post Monday, but the system ate my post. Bummer.

Started the big painting project. Have mixed results to post. Ken purchased this cool paint sprayer to do the outside painting with, but we started with the ceilings inside. He used the paint sprayer on the ceilings.

MAN! What a mess! Thank goodness we were using latex as cleaning up afterwards is not as difficult as it would be after oil-based! (small silver lining). We will put the actual paint on with a roller (Ken has decided).  We also elected to delay putting the paint on until next weekend as we are both whipped from the up-and-down the ladder from both taping, painting and cleanup (which is still not complete).

The ceiling DOES look MUCH better, though and it has made the whole room appear brighter and cleaner.  Only 5 rooms to go 😛

Mom complained that I don’t have enough pictures to look at. I will try to rectify that — lord knows I have plenty of pictures and space. My issue is preparing the photos for the web. I’m very concious that she’s on dial-up and file-sizes are a real issue for her. I want to optimize those pictures and size them. I know PSP has a batch process, but I have not used that too much, so tend to size and compress them one by one — very slow. Maybe Colin has some tips for me. — What do you say, Nephew?

All for now!

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning!

I’ve uploaded some new photos to the galleries.

Flowers and Birds are HERE

Some pictures of Snoball are HERE

I’ll write more later! Have a wonderful day!

Love to all,

Margaret

The last day of June 2006 — where has the year gone! I’m amazed at how fast time goes by any more. When I was a kid, it seemed the summer lasted FOREVER! And you can’t say it’s because we’re busier now than we were as kids — I was a pretty busy kid! Just ask Mom — I don’t think I ever whined to her that I was bored.

I rode my bike — nothing like nephew Colin’s fancy rig, either — one speed Schwinn with 18 or 20″ wheels. To me, though, that bike was everything. It was my horse, my car, my wings. It was really hard to part with that bike, but what is it they say about putting away childish things?

I’ve never been much of a television watcher — even as a kid. Oh yes, we had our shows that we watched — Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Ed Sullivan, but nothing like kids today watch tv. Reading — that was my escape from reality! First it was Arthur Payson Terhune, then Issac Asimov and Robert Heinelin. I think I passed along those authors to Eddie as he was growing up. Now it’s Dale Brown and Nora Lofts and John Sanford (along with a host of others!). All escapist literature for the most part. The rest of my reading is on the order of “The SQL Cookbook” or “SQL Server Administrator’s Guide”. I have a VB.Net book and a Java Scripting book, but haven’t cracked the covers on them yet – too important to cram down the SQL right now. 

Don’t go to many movies, either. When we do, it’s usually a comedy or action/adventure film. Way too often anymore, it’s G rated animated movies  🙂 – guess we’re entering our second childhood

Aurora is here for her summer week at Kamp Kemar. Ken went to pick her up today when he got off work. He said she greeted him at the door with tail wagging and ran straight out to the truck to jump in the front seat. He told her she at least needed to say goodbye to her Mommy and her kid. She leapt out, ran to Angela, jumped on her, whirled and ran back to jump in Ken’s truck. Guess she was ready for her vacation! She’s made herself right at home.

It sure is wonderful to see my dogs happy and contented. While Aurora was tickled to come visit us, she’ll be equally thrilled when her Mom and Kid come back to get her at the end of the week. I’m so lucky to have owners like Angela, Janet, Erin and Janine and Karen who let me see my dogs from time to time. That means the world to me!

Tomorrow we start the big house-painting project. We have openly admitted to ourselves that this project may very well take the rest of the summer and into the fall to complete. Ken will have to do most of it since my knees will not let me go up and down ladders! Anyone who would like to wield a paintbrush for any amount of time (10 minutes, an hour, a day!) is welcome to join the party! We’ll provide liquid refreshment in whatever form you take and plenty of snacks 😛  Not to mention you get to associate with some of the nicest dogs around!

Need to hit the sack — have to be well rested to begin the big painting project!

Love to all,

Margaret

Nothing really new to talk about. All my predictions of transporting over to Great Plains are coming true, but I have no joy in that. Guess it means job security for me (silver lining), but at what a price!

Think I have a home for Maggie. She’ll be going to Wisconsin if everything works out OK with the home visit (still have to find someone to do that). She’ll have to learn horses and deal with a cat, but there’s another Whippet in the household, so she won’t be lonely. Someone is home all the time, too — another plus. I’ll miss her beautiful face, though.

Now if I could just find homes for the two boys.

Groomed Snoball tonight. She’s really cute when she’s groomed! Wish I could find her a home, too.  Almost have her over the submissive peeing she did when she first came here. She’s a card!

That’s all there is to tell today.

Love to all,

Margaret

Finally got the gallery software working properly and have uploaded some of the photos taken of Bebe at her recital. 

http://www.kemar-k9s.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=10001&pos=-1

She sure is cute!

I hope to get some photos of Randy uploaded there as well.

Sebastian is at the vet’s tonight. Poor guy has a bad tooth and has to have it removed tomorrow. I’ll pick him up tomorrow afternoon.

Short one today — have to go fix Ken’s dinner.

Love to all,

Margaret

Went to Bebe’s recital Saturday — she was in 5 different numbers! She handled the costume changes really well — one was back-to-back numbers, so she had to change really fast and did it great! She was so cute!

We were not allowed to take pictures during the recital which was kind of a bummer, but I do understand that the flashes would have disrupted the dancers. I did get some pictures of her in her final costume after the recital was over as she came down to where we were sitting to get all her goodies. I’ll post those in a later entry with a link to the album they’re in.

She was in one number in the evening program which I understand she did really well in, but I’m sure she was exhausted by the end of the day.

All the children did well this year. The little ones (3-4-5 year olds) are always so cute! We especially enjoyed them.

Patrick was in Charleston for the summer, but is going back up north for school. He still is giving all of them (north and south) a really hard time behavior-wise. I wish there was something we could do for them all to make this time in his life go better for them.

Eddie is entering his 2nd week of orientation before going overseas. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

The saga of the kidnapped child continues. Social Services finally unbent and allowed her to get her dog, so Zach is leaving today for Pennsylvania and his girl. I’m so relieved that they finally agreed to let her have him. It really bothered me a lot to think she left here with nothing more than the clothes on her back. They may have stolen her from her mother, but Rebekah did not lack for anything materially. The FBI have been here nearly every day since they arrested Norma ( I can’t remember what her real name is) as they keep finding stuff that reveals more and more crimes committed by these two. John’s sister arrived on Charlotte’s doorstep last week demanding entry to the house so they could get the possessions that were left. They were not nice people and Charlotte changed all the locks on all the houses after they left — I don’t blame her!

On a funny note — one of the Abbeville Sherrif’s guys came (after Char called them when those people wanted entry to get the stuff out of the house) wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed him to be Abbeville County CSI 😛

It’s probably only funny if you know how tiny our county is and what little crime actually goes on here.

We’ve had some humdinger thunderstorms lately. We need the rain desperately, but could do without the pyrotechnics. Poor Bridget who is half-deaf seems to really be affected by the storms. She crawled in bed with us the other night and spent the entire night in bed with us – that’s something she NEVER does.

Got to run! Take care!

Love to all,

Margaret

Had to be at work at 6:00 am this morning. Trying to get all the information into Great Plains so they can start using it.

It’s not going too well.

After a frustrating day, I came home to my peaceful corner. The birds singing and the hummers flitting around their feeders soon washed all the frustrations of the day away.

Took a couple of photos of some of the day lilies that are blooming right now. I’m still waiting on my fancy ones to bloom, but they don’t like my soil and I’ve got to figure out what to do about that before they die completely.

Here are my hardy boys 🙂

This is what is euphemistically referred to as a “ditch lily” by the daylily enthusiasts. I don’t care — it’s very pretty!

I really don’t remember where I got this one from. It’s paler than my common lily and has a bit of a ruffle to the petals.

No, these are not lilies — they’re what I’ve always referred to as pinks — it’s a ground cover-type plant that has lavender edged flowers.

Don’t know about y’all, but we’re pretty dry here. The blackberries are tiny on the bushes — not much for jelly this year. My figs started out well, but have been set back these last few weeks of dry weather.

At least the grass isn’t up to my hiney.

Silver linings 🙂

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, the Jacobs family arrived yesterday a bit later than originally planned, but in fine spirits. Randy is at his most charming. When they arrived, it was Crested puppies time out to play, and they swarmed over Randy like killer bees, so we had to put them up as that was just too overwhelming for him and despite my trimming thier nails back right before they arrived, they were still too sharp for Randy’s delicate skin.

Whippets seem to be just right for Randy, though. He started off releasing Nyssa from her crate (which she was VERY grateful for!!), then played in her crate most of the rest of the night.

Tigger would play bow and bark and Randy would crawl across the floor making his interpretation of doggie noises. Then he found the bumpy ball that’s Tigger’s and threw it for awhile. Tigger is no retriever, but would chase the ball and pounce on it much to Randy’s delight. When Tigger heard Randy’s laugh, he would abandon the ball and go straight back to Randy to kiss him.

Bruno was intriqued by the new dog who knew how to open that crate door! Randy spent hours opening and closing the crate door and peeking out at us from inside the crate.

It’s been a fun visiit. Yvonne cooked some great chili for dinner last night and we’re going out for breakfast this morning before they leave to drop Eddie at Fort Jackson for his briefing before leaving for Baharain.

Got to get in the shower and get dressed.

Love to all,

Margaret