I'm glad to hear the slow wheels of government are turning and you will get your wall Saef.
My lab thinks nail cutting time is play time but a 70lb dog rolling around makes it darn near impossible to trim nails.
We are melting too, which is great, but the ground is saturated and the ditches are full of snow and today, well, I just heard thunder. I need to check our sump pump's battery back up. It's going to be ugly.
I'm going to have to play catch up. Some sort of bronchitis knocked me down. It's looking like I will live now. I haven't stepped near the scale. I haven't worked out in days and I've been eating too many sweets and salty foods because healthy things did not sound good.

Yesterday everything was puddles and streams, and then overnight temperatures plunged, and so of course, this morning, there are glassy rippling stretches of black ice everywhere. The sidewalk leading to the gym was particularly treacherous. I gave up on any appearance of self-sufficiency and held a metal railing to guide myself, then tried to walk in the grainy, filthy snow instead and when forced to walk on unbroken sheets of ice, I shuffled my feet so slowly, I felt I was getting a taste of what it will be like if I am so fortunate as to reach my 70s and 80s. I didn't fall, thank goodness.

Thanks all, on our wall. They're supposed to start construction in March. They gave a date, but I know about construction through my exile while my apartment was rebuilt, and there are four great truths I've learned: 1) it starts later than planned; 2) it ends later than planned; 3) it costs more than planned; and 4) there are moments of sheer despair in between when it looks as though it will NEVER be finished, and you'd be better off never having done it. So I've adjusted my expectations accordingly.

I am nervous about the great melt-off, even though it's given me such a feeling of psychological relief and renewed resilience. You know the winter is getting to everyone when, over a 24-hour period, four of your Northeast-based friends' Facebook status updates all start referencing Jack Nicholson going mad while snowbound in "The Shining." But of course I hate water, and the idea of it building up and brimming over, so I'll be watching for how swampy our grounds become.

Good news ! I do feel that a lot of the stress you are experiencing goes back to that terrible experience with the flood. I hope things continue to look up.

One set of bunny nails is done and the other will be done on Tuesday next week. And then DS and I will take it over. We're only dealing with a total of 7 pounds of rabbits - it is silly for us to not learn how to do this. Alcide appears to have fully recovered; he is back to his top-speed laps around the living room.

DS is in "he!! week" leading up to major show choir performances this Friday and Saturday night. They have already had 12 1/2 hours of rehearsal since Monday. Tonight he's testing for his first belt in Hapkido, plus a vocal lesson - and somewhere he needs to squeeze in homework. Oh, and he sings in two church services on Sunday. Overscheduled, anyone?

Construction is concluding on the bathroom/closet project - it's been a good experience and I am looking forward to moving back out of the downstairs office temporary bedroom. The only hiccup appears to be one oak door that had to be reordered. So my linen closet will be open for a few weeks; I can cope.

Today is freezing rain transitioning to rain, then tonight the wind advisories go up. Next week's forecast looks like more "polar vortex". What a winter ...

Morning all,

I hate to brag but the weather's been beautiful here and it's really lifted my spirits and made me itchy for springtime. I've been wearing sunblock for my long wogs with the dog. Although once again fog threatened to cancel my field work yesterday morning and I was going to throw up my hands in frustration. I'm glad I didn't. It lifted and we finally got this project that's been delayed by weather done for the quarter, and it turned out to be a beautiful day. I finished my first (of 3) class exams on Sunday morning, but it hasn't been graded yet. Now I'm trying to play the usual catch-up cleaning up the house and work on a class project before I go out of town next week for a few days for work.

Saef, I'm so glad your wall has been approved! I'm sure you're right about the process taking longer than planned but at least now it's moving forward instead of in red tape limbo. I hope when it's done you will feel some relief from flooding anxiety.

Jessica, I can somewhat relate and sympathize. It takes two of us two do Emma's nails as well bc she hates to have her paws touched, but isn't aggressive. I have occasionally hired someone to do it but don't often for $ reasons (I have no idea how they do it - if they do use two staff for her or what). BF holds her in his lap, with her on top, not held down with him on top bc she won't stand for that, and w her face near his talks to her, kisses her etc to try and keep her calm. I clip the nails. We only do 2 paws at once bc she won't stand for more. Then of course treats and praise. I have thought about getting a dremel but keeping her there for 5 minutes is hard enough. Our long wogs on the pavement bike path & beach file down the sharp edges pretty quickly so that doesn't concern me much.

Becky, GL to DS. He sounds very busy! 12 1/2 hours of rehearsal, wow. Sorry to hear about the skylight leaking. Will your current reno crew be able to fix that or do you have to find someone else to do it?

Joy, sorry to hear you've been sick. I'm glad you're on the mend now.

Off to work on a presentation for my meeting next week. Have a great day all!

My former vet showed me an excellent way for 2 people to cut dog nails. Though my dog worked out enough that her nails never got long until she got so old that she couldn't walk any distance any more.

Lay the dog down on its side. One person holds the dog lightly by the shoulders and strokes its chest while the other clips the nails. Most dogs find this very relaxing. My girl, even though she started shaking when she walked into the vets and shedding enough coat that they had to sweep the floor after her, was quite relaxed about the nail clip part.

DH's dad used to clip pet nails while watching TV. He usually did them 2-3 nails at a time and it was a continuous process that never ended (he had 3 cats and one dog). He was really relaxed about it all and so were the pets.

Dagmar

My in-laws adopted two polydactyl cats. One has 5 toes on front and 4 on the back so not too far off the norm, but the other has 6 on the front and 5 on the back. And on one of his front feet, there was a toe-less nail. It was really malformed and would constantly grow back into his foot. When he was just less than a year old they had that one surgically removed because it posed a danger of infection. Still in all, I worked with MIL time after time to teach her how to hold the cats and clip their nails. I guess she has no patience because now she sends her husband to the vet with each cat for a nail trim (at $15 per cat!). Ridiculous! My cats, although they don't really like it put up with a once every 3 or 4 week nail trim.

I've yet to try Bogey. I think if I get him when he's tired he'll do fine. But when he's riled up not a chance! Today he was really mellow all day at work and then when the guys started coming back he got all hyper and I ended up bringing him home a little early to wear him out. He's obviously still a puppy.

I'm procrastinating making dinner tonight. I don't feel like turning on the oven and yet that's the best way to roast acorn squash so perhaps we'll have that on Saturday instead.

I'm so looking forward to the weekend! Golf on Saturday and then Sunday we'll drive into LA, meet the kids for an early lunch and then see The Book of Mormon!

Dagmar, that's pretty much the technique we use with Carter. Lay him down on his side, DH sits behind him and pets his head and shoulders while I dremel his nails. He just keeps trying to get up and tugging his paws out of my hands so we end up having to have DH put his hand behind Carter's "elbow" a lot to keep him from pulling his paws in. It's frustrating because it would be so much quicker with the clippers, but Carter has these bizarre monster nails that are extremely thick and extremely brittle, which makes clipping very hard. First the nails are too thick for me to be able to even squeeze the clippers shut to do the clipping, then if I do manage to clip the sides of his nails crack off and it leaves a sharp and jagged result that has to be dremeled anyway. His front feet are even worse than his back feet.

Michele, he does have dew claws but they're not so overgrown that they're at risk of growing into the paw. His nails are a little over an inch long or so right now. As I mentioned before he has brittle nails so his dew claws are cracking off on their own.

We had kind of a disastrous morning this morning. First DH broke a plate, which would have been no big deal except a) DH freaked out about it as he always does with mistakes he makes, and b) the babies are scared of the vacuum cleaner and started wailing as soon as we turned it on. Luckily they calmed down okay once it was off again. Then Carter didn't want to go out so we didn't push him, figuring he didn't actually have to go. Five minutes later he pooped in the house, which he NEVER does. DH who was already on edge from having broken the plate yelled a lot of unrepeatable things. I was about to get in the shower and I ended up running downstairs with a towel on to try to calm down the situation and get Carter to come out from where he was hiding and go outside (because if he had to poo that badly, I knew he had to pee too). Then I had to actually go outside with Carter to get him off the deck. It's warmed up a lot but it's still pretty darn cold to stand outside at 6:30 in the morning wearing only a towel in the middle of winter!

The problem I think is that due to all the snow compounding the past couple months, we have not been able to get out in the yard to clean up Carter's poop (the poop would be covered in snow before we got a chance to go out there). Usually in winter we wait until the snow melts and then clean it all up. Well, since it was so cold this winter, Carter didn't want to go wandering all over the yard in subzero temps, and he kept pooping right at the bottom of the stairs. Now that it's melted, you can see that there's a whole line of poop at the bottom of the stairs. Carter doesn't want to step in his own poop, and he is now scared to go off of the deck because his poop is in the way. Sigh. I had to boot him off the deck and he ends up leaping sideways into the garden bed. It's melted much more today so we are going to go clean it all up this afternoon. It's so silly though -- he knows he's not supposed to poop in the house, and he always reacts very badly when he has pooped in the house by accident (afraid to go in the room he pooped in, slinks around the house guiltily even though we don't yell at him or anything), but yet he's so afraid to jump over a pile of his own poop that he won't go off the deck to poop in the yard.

In any case I am really hoping that the day improves for DH as my mom left yesterday and he's on his own with the girls and dog again, plus he has to take them for an appointment this afternoon to get their hearing checked (standard screening for preemies). I wanted to go along to the appointment but I stupidly scheduled an important meeting at work for the same time.

Oh Jessica. That sounds so rough. I do home the rest of the day goes better. Poor Carter too!

Allison-- your weekend sounds fun! I'm excited about my weekend too. Tonight I'm going to my school auction/dinner. They are usually pretty fun. I won't have dh so maybe I'll buy something! I'm going to be fashionably late as I don't want to miss yoga (though I'll leave a little early). Hopefully I won't get home too late as tomorrow is my scentsy party. Not sure how many will come as I got a lot of maybes and probables so hopefully I'm not sitting by my lonesome.... Sunday-- who knows? Double bikram if my back cooperates, grocery shopping, maybe my nails.....

Jessica... the image of the dog needing to urinate, your husband yelling, the babies howling, and you running around in a towel... well, isn't this some kind of Jungian dream?

I have something to add to the pet talk today. I'm in the hospital receiving IV antibiotics because I was bitten by a Chow Chow last Wednesday evening. The dog of a friend--I've been around him before--it was a sudden bite for unknown reasons. I guess I moved wrong or something. Anyway, he bit me on the left forearm, the bite became badly infected very quickly, and here I am.

I think a better way to get time off would be just to schedule a few days at a spa, don't you think?

Ahhh! JayEll - hope you get the infection cleared up!! I love all breeds of dogs, but have not had positive experiences with Chows! You might want to tell your friend - Chows are prone to a degenerative eye problem and when their vision starts to go they can get bitey.

Jessica - please don't hate me, but as a non-parent, I found your story hysterically funny. I think you need your own reality TV show!!

Jen

Jessica, that's one rough start - hope your DH recovers to meet his full load for the rest of the day.

JayEll - wishing you a speedy and complete recovery! I hope your friend is taking concrete action to make certain this will not happen again.

JayEll, organise the spa visit as well! Hope things work out smoothly at the hospital.

Hello! I just posted an intro in that area and wanted to say hi! Reached goal today!
This seems like a great group! Regarding the dog bite I heard years ago Chows send more kids to e.r. than any other dog but never actually heard of someone being bitten by one. Down here in FL we always hear about Pitt bulls attacking.
I've been living on 1200-1500 calories and today I can supposedly have 2100. Wow, that would have been dessert last year at this time, but now I need to figure out where to get it in! On all my past diets when I felt I reached goal I'd go really splurge and gain it all back. Not this time!

Sharon