TGIF - December 17
 

Good morning, Chickies. :coffee:

I've been up for a while listening to crashes. Nope, not Lucy this time! My neighbour's old rickety barn finally is falling apart! It's been a real eyesore and the County has been after them to tear it down. Well, the Snow God is doing it for them. Right now the whole back end is down from what I can see in the dark and the rest of it is slowly disintegrating. I guess I'll have the pleasure of looking at a pile of old gray boards until Spring - it's the view from my kitchen window. I guess changing that view will be my spring project.

I'm a tad aching :( this morning from lugging, wood, wine, groceries and dog meat yesterday - not all at once. I left the meat and wine in the car last night and am going to ask Rob to give me a hand this morning. On the other hand, Advil and Heat may loosen me up soon.

Got an early Christmas gift yesterday - great earrings from my sister. They are quite tiny (about 1/2 inch wide) and really cute! She ordered them before she went to Brazil and they arrived the day she got back.

Hershey is off to the vet for more blood work this morning. After that the Christmas tree project will be underway!

What's on your agenda? After coffee, that is! :cofdate:

Good Mornin' Ruth!Sounds like you have the day all mapped out. So will they remove the fallen down barn in the spring or will you get someone on it so you don't have to look at it.
Me... Well DS gets out at 11:10 today so there goes my peace! haha Hopefully today I will feel like getting out and about. I must have a lil bug or something. DH told me Wed. morning I could go buy my new dishwasher and I have not felt like goin yet! We picked it out Sun. but he has to process everything.UGH! I told him he could run over and do it but no he says we'll wait til I feel better. Still no tree and no decorations. Well I do have my diningroom table set with my Christmas dishes but that is it. I think I am goin to my Mom's Sunday for a day or two and I know what DH will do he will go buy a tree (that I don't want) put it up get in my decorations and have DD decorate it. Which I will be very unhappy about! They are 2 peas in a pod when it comes to do anything it is slap it together and who cares what it looks like. Well I am off to get DD out the door. She is a pokey one.
Have a great day all!

I can't believe so few have posted this morning. I know I'm not early. ;) I made Mu Shu Pork for dinner last night (served in Whole Wheat Tortillas) and my DH said that this is one meal that can come back. I used Splenda for the 1/2 tsp of sugar in the recipe so the only other sugar was in the Hoison sauce that you put on the tortilla and we could control how much we used. It was a great dinner filled with lots of veggies.

Tonight we are eating dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse with the train club. Afterwards they are going back to someone's house for dessert. I went last year and she served lots of delicious cakes and desserts. I know I cannot resist those so I am going to bow out after the dinner and let DH and Brian go without me for dessert. I'm not doing well staying away from the sweets and I think the best things for me would be to just avoid them.

Morning!

I don't think I've ever written in a daily with only two posts in it...all our early birds (except Ruth and Bamie) must be off and hiding!

Ruth, I hope you feel better soon! :grouphug: All that hauling! :faint: Glad your view isn't blocked by the barn anymore...but hope you can convince the neighbor to get everything hauled off in the spring! You could always toss a bunch of wildflower seeds over there and make a nice field to look out at! ;) The earring sound darling! I love tiny studs. I'm jealous about the tree...we had no time to do one this year...but my mom is saving some of the decorating of hers for me. :D I hope Hersh's tests come back okay!!! :crossed:

Bamie, so sorry that you're still not feeling well! I don't remember feeling sick on my anti-ds, but I needed them for depression! :lol: Have you put in a call to your doc, just in case? Hope you feel better soon and that DH and kiddos stay out of the tree!

Me:
Well....I weighed in at 222.5 today!!! :dance: So excited that I might move my signature even though I usually wait 3 days of the same weight before I move it. I didn't have any fruit yesterday, so that might have done the trick. On the other hand, I was famished after I got home from class, so I had another dinner (I had a taco salad with no chips at school) of 2 chicken breasts, broccoli, and 3 bean salad...so it could be that I wasn't eating enough! I'll eat my normal amount but no fruit today and see what happens. I don't want to do no fruit everyday because I think I need the nutrients, but I'll do one more day and then maybe every other day if it seems to be helping?

Our big Christmas party is tomorrow. I have to buy perishables today after work, then start cooking, cooking, cooking! DH is going to help with cleaning, but I need to tidy up before he will touch most of the house. He's going to shampoo the living room rug, I think...our dog, Lady, has been peeing and pooping in there for a month...:( Ruth, do you have any housebreaking hints? We were taking her out every hour and she still was running in there when we weren't looking and doing her business. Then she eats the poop and leaves crumbs all over the carpet. :tied: So gross!!! We've kept the doors to the living room closed for now, and it seems to be helping. Maybe she just wasn't ready to have so much of the house available to her? I'd love tips, though!

Finished class yesterday but need to write up a report for my independent study today. Off to work!

Have a great day, chickies to come!

Beachgal -

With regard to the dog (I'll bow to Ruth's superior advice, of course) How old is your dog? When we adopted a 6-month-old from the local shelter, he came to us not housebroken. We crate-trained him so that when he wasn't directly with us, he was in the crate - our vet told us dogs won't poop where they sleep or lie down. We also tried something from a book called "how to be your dog's best friend" by the Monks of New Skete (Highly recommended) that suggested you leash your dog, and tie the leash to your belt loop, so that the dog learns that what he should be doing is sticking around with you. Then the dog can't sneak off and do anything without you noticing. We tried those two things and had the dog housetrained for the most part in two weeks. (only one accident since then, and it was because we missed the dog's signals.) We've had our boy for coming up on two years now and he has had no problem with going outdoors. Oh, and we praised the heck out of him when he would go outdoors, and whenever we caught him at it indoors we acted really theatrically upset, then dragged him outdoors to finish up. That I think was what tipped the scales. He started to think "gee, if I go inside they get all mad, but when I go outside they say I'm great! I'll go outside!"

Hope that helps!
Solarmama

Thanks, Solar! We adopted Lady at 1.5 years, about a year ago. Before that she was in an abusive situation, then in a shelter, then in a foster home, then with us...you can tell that she's been through a lot. At the foster home, they had a doggie door, and she was great with it. But she has a very hard time telling us she has to go outside. We've tried putting a bell on the door and asking her to ring it before we go outside. But she doesn't get that ringing it will tell us she's ready.

She does love attention, and we both can't give it to her 24/7. I think if we made a big fuss of catching her in the act, she would do it more for the attention...plus, we rarely catch her, just find it after. :( I think we need to pay more attention to her and leave her alone less often. She is crate trained, and never pees or poops in her crate. We just need to get her to see the whole house as an extension of her crate...I think? Can you tell that we are novices?

Thanks so much for the advice, solar...I think what you say about having her with us is totally true...she's been much better now that we're constraining her to the room we're in by closing doors to other rooms. :yes:

BTW, did anyone notice that this smiley: :D has a santa hat? How cool!!! Thanks, Suzanne and Jennifer!!! :cp:

Well, you never know where the Daily will go!
Coprophagia or poop eating is common in canines. There are tablets available that you can give your pooch that will turn him off.
As to using the LR for his bathroom, best just keep him out of there. Once it's become the can, it remains the can until you replace the floor!
As Lucy in Peanuts says "50 cents, please!" :lol:
PM me if you want/need specifics. I'd hate to get a report of an offensive post although it would serve to put us "off our feed"! :rofl:

That's right, Ruth...I'm just trying to keep everyone from eating at their holiday parties today! :lol: (Do I get 50cents too?)

Oy about the LR staying the bathroom forever...That's where her kennel is...so it's hard to keep her out of there! We are able to keep her out unless we're there or she's kenneled, so that may be what we have to do. I'll PM on the rest so that I don't keep everyone off their food all week! ;)

And to think I was eating my salad reading this! :D See what I miss when i check in late.

My two cents are this. I too bow to Ruth but I'll throw my advice in. Crate training - yes. When my rottie was a puppy he was crate trained. When he out grew the crate I put him in a spare bedroom with a baby door so he thought that was his new crate. Then he advanced to the spare bedroom and kitchen and finally the whole house. He never - ever pooped or peed in the house except once when he was on narcotics and couldn't control it. (He ate a bunch of rib bones out of the trash and they had to pull bone pieces out of his throat) When they do their business in the house I spray ammonia (sp?) and scrub because they will just keep going there over and over but somehow ammonia (sp?) kills that urge. My vet told me that if a dog eats his - you know what - it is because there is too much protein in their food and their body can't digest it. So they just think it is food. Yuck! So I switched foods and he didn't do it anymore. Also helpful is to only feed the dog twice a day and give them 1/2 hour to eat. Whether they are done or not remove the bowl from the floor. They learn to eat it when they are supposed to then put them outside and watch until they do their business. Hopefully this helps you.

Me? I'm having kind of a crappy little day! Everything I've tried to do including changing the fax ribbon has turned into a three hour project! Actually giving the doggie advice was the first fun thing today! Thanks Laurie - it makes me think of Major the Rottie and that always makes me happy.

I hope everyone else has a better day than I'm having! :lol:

Ho

Good morning. Everyone seems to have started holidays a week, yes it is a full week, early. Not me, though. I am still at work slaving away. But I am "the boss" this week. Woohoo....I still have money on the corporate credit card and noone to tell me that I can't spend it. :lol:

Ruth - I can imagine the crashing in the morning. We had a house burn down behind us and the structure left standing and the debris was never cleared away. One Sunday morning as we were laying in bed, the bed started to shake - please not dirty images here. It was the house falling down. That was a good thing. The county brought in a bulldozer, bulldozed all the junk into the hole and covered it up. The owner couldn't do it...he was in jail for arson. :lol:

Hope you are feeling better as the day goes on and that Hersh's test come back OK. Take care.

Bamie - You sound like you are organized...dining room table set already. I'm hoping to find my dining room table one of these days, then find the dishes to put on it. ;) Have a great day with DS home :dizzy:

Barb - Congrats on your plan for tonight. I think that it is best to stay away from the temptations when you know that they will be a problem. With the rest of the season still ahead, it is wise to exercise that control now. WTG.

Laurie - We had a dog that was abused when we were first married. When our son got a new puppy, he used to let him run the house when we were gone and didn't pay attention to house training. He used the corner of the living room, too. We would constantly be steam cleaning, but eventually got him out of the habit. When hubby steam cleans the carpet, have him throw some vinegar into the water as he steam cleans. I also sprayed the carpet (after cleaning) with vinegar because they don't seem to like the smell. We got out current dog from a breeder when she was very young and I wouldn't let her out of my sight for the longest time - partly because of the house training, but also because she gets into trouble. She is 2 1/2 now and is only now beginning to realize that she is allowed to be by herself in the house...she really does like to be around us now, though, and I don't mind that, except I have to drop stuff to even go to the kitchen with her to watch her drink her water. :D Be persistent and patient...

Me - I have been to party after party this week. And yes, I have indulged in stuff that I don't normally eat and thoroughly enjoyed. I am up 2 pounds this morning over last week so that isn't too bad considering it is that TOM, too. This weekend will have to be back to Phase 1 for a few days just to make sure that I can manage the temptations at Christmas.

And we are STILL installing hardwood flooring. Counted last night and there are 22 rows left to do. We would have finished it up last night, but at 11:00, we realized that we needed to carry more boxes of wood upstairs and were too tired to do that, so decided to finish it tonight. Oh well, by tomorrow night, we will be moved back into our bedroom and be able to enjoy a decent night's sleep. Next week, DH will need to fix the holes in the walls, etc. from the room that DS just moved out, paint that room and get it ready for company at the end of the week. Hopefully, we will be ready for Christmas BEFORE Christmas and not after. :lol:

Hope everyone has a great weekend. We have one that is scheduled for every minuted, so I won't be back on until Monday. Take care everyone, and make sure that you plan carefully what you eat. Good luck.

Laurie, also a trick is to feed her a little bit of canned spinach in her food and that will break the eating cycle! :eek: All of our rescues say a great big thank you for adopting from a shelter. ;) One of our boys got up in the night and checked out some of the Christmas presents really just tore bows off and didn't rip the packages the buggar. :sball2:

Ruth, I haven't been around but what is going on with Hershey? Hope the blood work turns out to be good news. At least you will have a different view of the barn and maybe since it fell down he will hire someone to come and haul it off.

Bamie, hope you start feeling better real soon so you can enjoy the kids' Christmas break. :snf:

Barb, I love Mu Shu Pork, never thought of using the wh wh tortillas though. Last night I made Ellis' meatball recipe that is on the thread for Phase I. Really yummy, everybody liked them including my picky granddaughter who took the leftovers in her lunch. Hopefully you can find something on plan at Spaghetti Warehouse but enjoy your party regardless of what the foods are. :D

As for me I work all day again today and tomorrow. Off on Sunday to go look at Christmas lights at the ocean. This will be my 4 yo granddaughter's first time going to see them and she is excited. She loves to go anywhere with grandma anyway. I feel so lucky to have all five grandkids so close :) well two of them are living in the house right and that is a little too close but that will change in January, if their new home doesn't get wrecked again. I don't have to do Christmas dinner this year though as my mom is having everybody over to her house, there will be about 20 of us. This is the first time in years that we have all been together for a holiday. My brother lives three hours away and my sister about 8 1/2 hours away. The only one who won't make it will be my brother (he is a nurse) but his wife and son are coming.

Okay, off to work I go. Everyone have a really great day.

:merry:

Good morning Anchor and Sweet Tooth, we were posting at the same time.

Great tips on the doggie problem Anchor.

Sweet Tooth, we are getting ready to put in some Pergo flooring and our sales person told us to do it ourselves cuz it isn't that bad. Is that what you are doing or are you putting in hardwood? I just want to know if it is hard or not. It costs twice as much to hire someone to do it.

Good news from the Vet! Hersh had a morning vet visit. Leslie is pleased that she has put on weight and the fur seems to be coming back. The bleeding is still with us, however! It wouldn't be such a problem if she'd just quit wagging her tail and spattering the walls. We will get results of the bloodwork on Tuesday morning latest and then will decide if spaying before Christmas is the answer. Post-partum bleeding is usually over in 6 weeks but the pups were born Oct 8 so.....

Just made OP pizzas with whole wheat pita for crust. Yummy! Now I'm off to take the last parcel to the Post Office.

All of a sudden it's busy in here! So much for the morning hiatus!

Awe poor Hersh! Hopefully it will stop and no surgery needed.

Wow it did get busy in here all of a sudden. Good that means we're checkin in and staying accountable! haha (Ellis...Where are you?) teehee

I am just so glad I feel better not 100% yet but getting there. I have a friend who is coming to visit tomorrow and the last thing I want is to be sick! :?:

I love the Christmas smilies! :D :) hohoho! Unless old man winter can see it in his heart to visit it does not look like we will be building one of these anytime soon! :sman: hahaha Ok Seeing the coffee smilie all of the sudden makes me want a cup. I have not really felt like drinkin any the past few days so I guess now I'll play catch up! :coffee:

Have a great evening everyone and a great weekend for those of you who won't be around! :D

Bunna - We are actually installing 3/4" hardwood. We did two rooms last Christmas and it turned out really well, so decided to do the master bedroom before Christmas this year. It isn't all that difficult, but just take your time with the first row. Set it up and square it off, otherwise a mistake will just get worse as you move across the room. Last year, I think it took us about 5 hours to put the first row down... It was discouraging to say the least. But the rest of the installation went perfectly.

We work at a college where they teach trades...one of the instructors was out one day to install some doors for us. He was looking at the floor and told us that it was a better job than an installer would do because they camouflage. We ripped them out and redid them. Anyway, the installation that we did this time was better (but the area was not as complicated, either) and it has turned out fine.