All dogs are good dogs…

My (then fiance), Dr. J woke up one day and said, “Let’s go to the pound…just to see.”  He had been pressuring me to get a dog since we had been dating and I always felt like I had a legitimate excuse to say no.  “No, we can’t – we don’t live together.”  “No, we can’t, we’re not engaged.”  “No, we can’t – my family already has a dog.”  “No, we can’t – I ate Mexican for dinner.”  I finally gave in because I really had run out of legitimate excuses and I really liked the idea of having a heartbeat to come home to that was ours and not shared amongst 3-4 households as my family pet was.

It was a beautiful September Sunday in Columbus, Ohio (9.17.06 if you’re curious) when we went to the Franklin County Animal Shelter’s “Mingle with our Mutts” open house event.  It was a pretty big event for the pound and they invited several dozen rescue groups to set up on their front lawn for good measure.  It was sunny with piercing blue skies (a rarity in the Midwest) and the green grass of the shelter lawn beckoned us to come closer.  Walking across that lawn I immediately eyed a Beagle Rescue and a *big* Beagle inside of a pop-up “jail”.  It was love at first site.  She was quiet.  She was calm.  She was super interested in her surroundings.  She had a “pink eye” where one of her eyelids is pink instead of the typical black/brown.  She was house trained and knew a whole slew of tricks.  She had short hair.  She had ridiculously soulful eyes that said, “Love me, please!”.  She was a “she”.  She was Maggie.  She was perfect!  I wanted her.  Dr. J said to me, “Wait a minute – shouldn’t we look at a few more dogs before deciding on the first one we see?!”  I didn’t care.  I was sold.  We signed the paperwork, paid the $100 adoption fee ($50 from him, $50 from me), gathered her up and brought her home.

Our first pic of Maggie. Dr. J took her into “work” at Ohio State University. That’s the ‘Shoe behind her…

Those eyes are what slayed me…

The Maggie head tilt

The information we got from the Rescue filled us in on Maggie’s already eventful life.  She was born sometime in August of 2005 and was immediately adopted by somebody who probably didn’t realize how much work a Beagle-Boxer mix was going to be.  She was energetic and quite a handful so that person eventually gave her up to a Vet’s office around 6 months of age.  The Vet took one look at her and said, “Beagle!”  So they called up a Beagle Rescue nearby in Ohio, Beagles Rrrrrr Us, and they took her in.  But she kept growing and growing and growing…Eventually, she was too much for even the Beagle handlers to handle and they sent her to the klink – no, really!  She spent about two months in Madison County Correctional Facility living with the inmates, learning tricks, being cared for and rehabilitated by the inmates and, in turn, she rehabilitated them.  They kept a daily journal for her and it is still one of our most treasured items to flip through about her time as a puppy.  After her freedom from jail, she went back to the Beagle Rescue where she was passed over for a few months simply because she was “too big” by Beagle standards.  But she was absolutely perfect for us!  Home she came!

Whoever said two months in prison would teach you nothing?:

Shake

Up!

Down! Now gimme a B-O-N-E!

Adjusting to life with a “puppy”, even a 1 year, 1 month old house trained mutt, is always a big adjustment. Maggie had all of the usual puppy things to get over that used to drive us (mostly me) crazy. She jumped up on people all of the time when they came in the door, including us! She chewed on our furniture (but never our shoes). She barked at random things and would wake us up in the middle of the night with her “big girl bark”. She also had a tendency to “jailbreak” and try to run free – boy, did she like to run! She also loved to tug on her leash and was a powerful little fireplug – she could take down a whole city block if she wanted to! We took her to a dog park very soon after we adopted her and she clotheslined several 5 year olds. She also had a tendency to chow down her meals. I timed it once – 5 seconds flat. It took a lot of creativity to break her in and in some cases she never really grew out of everything, but she eventually grew up and out of most of those habits and became the absolute best Mascot Mutt and Co-Pilot we could ask for.

How we found her one morning and determined that she needed a doggy bed – yes, that is our pillow:

Maggie’s travels after adoption mirror that of her parents.  She lived in three states: Ohio, Oregon and California.  She traveled with us through 14, the final list being Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and California.  She also got to see some incredible sights along the way like Yellowstone National Park, Devil’s Tower and the Badlands.  She experienced cities like Columbus, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Salt Lake City and Reno.  She also got to kick back in smaller towns like Bend, Kennewick, Sioux Falls, Cody and the farm fields of Iowa.  She went up to peaks of about 7,000 feet like those in Lake Tahoe and Bighorn National Park and down to around sea level.  She got to see the Pacific Ocean on many occasions, both in the frigid waters off of Oregon and in beautiful sunny California.  She never really liked frolicking in the water, though a Sea Lion did intrigue her one time at the docks in Astoria, Oregon.  In California, she got to witness some amazing sunsets on the beaches of Cambria, great hikes, amazing weather and her long sought after sunbeams.  She saw snow, rain, sleet, hail, heat waves, cold snaps, blizzards and everything in between, though sunshine and warmth were her favorites.  She got to experience the highs and lows of her parents’ life as we took her everywhere we could with us that was possible.

Is this heaven? Iowa, 2008

Yellowstone, 2008

Cannon Beach, Oregon, 2009.

San Francisco, 2009

Cambria Beach, California, 2013

As much as her parents loved to travel and drag her along she really was a home body.  She enjoyed hanging out on whatever back porch/deck/patio/veranda we had just to catch some rays and work on her tan.  She lived in four different houses over the years as her parents flitted from state to state.  She loved chasing the Canada Geese at our Condo in Columbus and curling up by the fire in both of her Oregon houses.  Her California house gave her three floors to roam and she loved it when we let her out on the front porch to watch the crazy people walk by – her “big girl bark” came in handy in those instances.  Her favorite spot in all of those houses was either in a sunbeam or, in a pinch, in front of a fireplace.  She liked to stay active like her folks and she helped us with all kinds of remodeling projects around the house, big and small.  She suffered through demolition, renovation, painting (including accidentally, a few times on her – oops!), air compressors, power tools and all of the confusion it brought to her world.  She didn’t seem to mind it, but I’m sure she would’ve much preferred a quiet place to sleep with a lot of heat.

Tanning

Supervising Dr. J

I’d much rather be sleeping…

She had many rich experiences but she was always, first and foremost, a simple dog.  While we loved sitting on the beach with our dog, she just loved being close to us.  She hated car rides, but loved going places.  She wouldn’t let me touch my keys without promising to take her somewhere.  She loved sunbeams and green grass.  California was her favorite for that reason :-).  She was an insanely good catch, but a terrible retriever.  She loved to chase the laser pointer and would follow us around even if it was turned off waiting for us to turn the “dot” on.  She loved bees and hummingbirds.  She was confused by cats.  She hated the UPS man but loved the FedEx guy.  Bald people were apparently very scary.  So were long skirts, umbrellas and briefcases.  As such, her guard dog ways were both very helpful and insanely embarrassing.  Cuddling was her favorite pastime, though she never got up on the couch without first asking or “Mrf-ing” as we came to know it.  She had three doggy beds in our house so that no matter where we were she had a soft place to lie down.  We didn’t allow her to sleep in the bed, but every morning she would jump up the last 30 minutes or so before the alarm would go off and cuddle with her Daddy.  She must’ve known we were weak to her wiles at that time of day.  She loved to lick the dishwasher’s dirty dishes for us and even stole a spatula from the dishwasher at Christmas and ate it.  I couldn’t be angry.  She was too cute.

Cuddle time!

Early morning cuddles

Oh, please. Not another car ride!

Maggie was our dog, but she was my baby girl and she knew it.  She and I would “go to work” every morning, which was just a short shuffle down the hallway.  This was very important to her as her job was to sleep on my feet and provide me with hilarious instances over the years of her having “dog-mares” and snoring while I was in meetings on the phone.  Occasionally she would let one rip while I was on the phone for work and I had to quickly mute the phone so I wouldn’t laugh too hard while trying to remain professional.  She knew the sun schedule, too, and would often whine for me to open the blinds at the appropriate time so she could get her suntan and look out for the UPS man – God, she hated him and I don’t know why.  When I was having a rough day, I would walk away from my desk to give her a cuddle, rub her soft dog ears and calm my blood pressure.  Best medicine ever.

Maggie sleeping while I work – notice her tongue hanging out…?

She likes to work it work it

Maggie was a talkative soul and we talked a LOT.  Her eyes and head tilts always seemed to say, “But I really DO want to understand you!”  Her earnestness to understand was something I had never experienced in a dog before.  She had the most soulful eyes and expressive eyebrows.  It wasn’t unusual to see her tilt her head so far that it was almost upside down like a bird.  She mastered the art of cute.  She always asked to go outside by running to a door (or a window if we were in a 30 story hotel), sit, MRF.  No response.  Sit, MRF!  She would communicate this to us as opposed to the door, which I always thought was pretty incredible.  Even if she was really sick, she would rather die than make a mess indoors so she would wake us up in the middle of the night if it was an emergency…even for vomit!

We called this ear placement “Bat Dog”

Those eyes!!

It goes without saying that she was an incredible dog as all dogs are to their owners.  So it was a great shock to us when she passed away a few weeks back due to a short illness that took us completely by surprise and took her from us far too soon.  She was 8.5 years old and far too young to die when she did.  There really was nothing that could’ve been done that we didn’t do.  Had a kidney been needed, I would’ve gladly donated it.  Her last days were confusing and her final moments terrifically chaotic and traumatizing for me personally.  As difficult as it was for me to watch our beloved and adored Maggie die in our house by myself, I’m glad she felt “comfortable” enough to die in front of me.  She knew I was “there” even if I was running around like a crazy person behind her screaming to the vet on the phone begging for help.  Although her last day was not very easy for us, I’m glad she died in a place where she felt comfortable.  Familiar.  Safe.  With her Mommy by her side.  Definitely not alone…

Her last photo

As we try to move on and grieve, every day is a small memory of Maggie and how she would react to the simple things in our house.  Loading the dishwasher.  Watching the UPS man make a delivery.  Cooking a meal.  Watching TV with her on my feet.  “Going to work”.  Picking up my keys.  Listening to hummingbirds.  Chasing bees.  Hearing a doorbell on the radio or TV.  Picking up the laser pointer (which also happens to be our TV remote).  Seeing the leftover remnants of nose art on our windows and doors.  They all bring back so many memories and each time it hits me my breath catches and I think, “Oh, Maggie…”  I’ll be having those thoughts for years to come, I’m sure.  And someday we will get another dog and love the poop out of that creature too.  And we’ll mourn that pooch and cry as well just as we have our previous family pets and critters.  But for today, she’s the one I want to think about and mourn and remember.  She was our first dog as a couple.  She was our baby girl.  She was our Maggie…and she was very loved…

RIP, Maggie. 2005 – 2014

I’m not gonna mince words – moving blows!

Welp, last week was a bust in terms of “vacation”.  I took the whole week off from work and I busted my butt from sun-up to sun-down for 7 whole days and, MAN, is my body ticked because of it.  I don’t remember hurting this badly since my freshman year of Band Camp at Ohio University.  And Homecoming every year after, but who’s counting?

I’d love to provide some pictures but my camera battery is dead and I can’t find the cord.  Office, maybe?  In a box?  Likely at the bottom of the pile…?

Needless to say, everything went about as smoothly as it could go if things like this CAN go smoothly (that’s arguable).  Moving is always a stressful time, especially when you are moving across state lines.  Now that we’re here, it’s a sprint to get our cars registered, new IDs, etc, etc.  I’m just hoping that the written driver test here is easier than it was in Oregon.  Dr. J failed it the first time around and I barely passed.  Awesome.  Let’s just schedule that ahead of time as an entirely lost afternoon when I get around to it.  Maybe I can drive out of the city and find a really quiet DMV?  My other biggest concern was around voting.  We’ve decided to absentee vote in Oregon this year and we’ll register in California after the election.  That way I can say I’ve voted in three states!  And not illegally either!  As a total legit resident!  Beat that!

I’ll be back soon to give you some “empty” shots of the house in Oregon.  That seriously pulled at my heartstrings, lemme tell ya.  But that’s another story for another day.  We’ll also be giving shots of the new pad with a rundown of “plans” that we have including painting and maybe a few minor changes – with our landlady’s permission, of course :-).

Other than that, we’re all doing well.  Maggie is probably doing the best since she was able to finally catch up on sleep this weekend while Dr. J and I busted ass to get the kitchen, office and bedroom mostly functional.  The house is still a box graveyard but at least we can get up and down stairs now.

More to come!  Stay tuned!

Shut the Front Door!

We’re on an exterior mission to fix up the house’s curb appeal before we lease the house.  Here is step one!

Ready….set….lookatourterriblefrontdoor!!!!!!!

It’s pretty sad and pitiful, isn’t it?  We heard from several of our neighbors that this door had been “knocked in” by the previous owners.  Something about being a foreclosure and them trying to get in and “steal” things from the bank (like the kitchen sink and all of the appliances).  Pretty sure they won “Homeowner of the Year” award in a parallel universe.  Oh, and we still haven’t traded out the Sheriff’s Locks on this bad boy.  We’ve been rocking the two toned handles since 2009!  Pretty sure we win “Homeowner of the Year” in this universe – haha!

But as if all of that weren’t bad enough, the door also faces west and gets all of the prevailing winds and moisture from our rainy Pacific Northwest winters.  Once it’s wet, the sun comes out and bakes it so up close it’s looking a little more like this:

…in other words, kind of warped, damaged and dried out from the sun.  We kind of hemmed and hawed around repairing this door for awhile for God knows why.  First it was because we thought we would need a handyman or carpenter to repair it because it looked like it was “out of true” and we wanted to try and salvage it.  The door looked crooked in the frame but after breaking out our level and straight edges we realized it was the casement that was crooked and not the door – haha!  Classic.  Reminded me of that Shel Silverstein poem about the kid who has wavy hair and eventually shaves it all off only to discover he just has a wavy head.  Well, we definitely weren’t going to tackle repairing the casements (that takes a calibre of skill that neither of us have and a can of worms that we didn’t have handy).  So that kind of gave way to the fact that we could go ahead and try refinishing the door and then seeing what happens.  After all, replacing this door is not an option.  It’s a full 8′ tall and as expensive as they come so may as well try to give it some spit polish…

So we removed the door:

…which gave Maggie a perfect perch to monitor all of the goings on:

…and then Dr. J got to sanding it down so it was smooth as a baby’s behind – literally took like 20 minutes:

…then it was into our secret stash of stains and paints and we found a leftover stain from….mystery project?  It may have been leftover from when we finished the Ikea Countertops for our desk in the office but we really don’t remember.  In other words – it was free.

Then we let it dry, sanded, poly-ed, sanded, poly-ed, replaced the door hardware and VOILA!

How’s that for some updated curb appeal?  Not bad for a quick weekend project that only cost us the cash to replace the locks.  Is it perfect?  No.  But we’re renting this house from here on out so it doesn’t have to be perfect for us.  It just has to look good!  And since we’ve purchased a nice storm door to protect it, we’re hoping that this finish will be nice and protected from the elements – fingers crossed.

It’s time for another (video) house tour!

The last time I did a video house tour, it was back before we renovated the bathroom and finished up the Room of Requirement – i.e. it was well over a year and a half ago!  And since we’re planning a pretty massive move down to California, I thought now would be a good time to update the latest video tour.  Because…le sigh…it might be the last time to really photograph the house before it gets all “torn up” before we move.  So here goes nothin’!

CLICK HERE FOR HOUSE TOUR 2012

Oh, and if you’re curious what the last house tour was like, then you can click here for the one we took in January 2011.  It’s kind of funny to watch them one after the other just to spot the changes.  Dr. J and I recently watched the one from 2011 and it’s amazing to see the old master bathroom and how much of an upgrade we gave that sucker.

Here are some fun things to point out in the 2012 tour:

• Maggie, the Mascot Mutt – she kept following me around upstairs (as she always does) and made some cute cameos :-).
• My “technical difficulties” with the camera – I just couldn’t win (story below)
• The completed office, Room of Requirement and Master Bath!
• I was still wearing my Pajamas when I made this tour so notice how I slyly avoid looking in mirrors throughout the tour – haha!  there are a few peeks, though – don’t worry, it wasn’t anything too risque!
• Apparently I say “Love it! Love it! Love it!” a few times throughout.  I don’t notice it, but Dr. J did…haha!

So that’s the video house tour 2012.  Hopefully it should come in handy for our future renters-to-be??  Who knows?  Also, I just couldn’t seem to “win” the day I shot this.  I went to use the Flip cam, realized it was out of battery and switched to my point-and-shoot camera which has video capability.  I shot the downstairs with no problems, then when I went upstairs I accidentally shot myself directly in the mirror wearing my pajamas and my hair all a wreck (classy!).  So I had to do another take and then my camera ran out of battery (gah!), so I had to do a quick charge and rush through the last half of the tour – hah!  It was funny :-).  Like I said, I just couldn’t seem to win!

Let me know what you think.  You’ll have to head on over to YouTube to watch the video but it should give you a pretty good idea of the layout of our house and all the changes we’ve made since the last tour.  Enjoy!

Bad blogger, bad blogger!

I am.  I truly am BAD at blogging.  I don’t blog every day.  I don’t “Pinterest” like it’s my job – ’cause I’ve got a regular 9 to 5 and it keeps me PLENTY busy.  I don’t have giveaways once/week.  I don’t really craft.  I read other peoples’ blogs but then I always forget to comment and say, “Good job!”  I don’t go to blogging events and/or conferences.  Hell, I just frankly S-U-C-K at keeping up with this here blog at times…

However, I feel I have a very good excuse for being a “bad blogger”.  Let me show you some numbers.  We started our bathroom renovation 22 weeks ago this past Saturday, July 30.  In that timeframe, we more-or-less finished an entire bathroom gut job (it’s 90% there and holding for reasons that I’m explaining in this post) and hosted out-of-town guests and/or were out of town for (wait for it) a total of 16 times (17 if you count this past weekend and Dr. J was out of town while I stayed home)!!!!  Some of those were during the weeks, but generally they were on the weekends.  There was one week where we had to change the guest room sheets three times!  Some of those guests were repeats, but for the most part we got to introduce more than a dozen friends and family to new experiences in the Pacific Northwest!  It was a lot of fun and I’m so glad we have that dedicated guest space for everybody to use!  But daaaaaaamn…..was it tiring.  And having to share shower and bath space with most of those guests for that timeframe got a little old, to say the least.  So things have been a wee bit quiet on the blog and I *still* haven’t revealed the bathroom in all of its glory, so let’s get a little update goin’ for all the curious stalkers.

So here’s a quick update on the bathroom….ya ain’t missin’ much.  The last time we worked on the bathroom was back here when we got the shower door installed.  I think since that time we’ve purchased a couple of shelves (that are still only halfway installed), bought a couple of accessories and that’s about it.  We still have to finish up the baseboards, hang crown molding and do a TON of touch up painting, caulking and sealing.  Needless to say we’re kind of crossing over the finish line by way of the Horn of Africa – i.e. we’re taking our sweet @$$ time, piracy not included.  Rather, we’ve been a little busy (see paragraph above).  My point?  We definitely have a lot of finishing up to do in there and hope to get it ALL wrapped up officially in August.  At that point I’ll definitely be sharing the full makeover (video and all) with pics, budget rundowns, the whole effin’ she-bang!!!

Which brings me to everybody’s favorite question – ok, mostly my Mom who is greedy for me to do more makeovers like an Extreme Makeover junkie – seriously, somebody has GOT to control that woman.  The big question is, “What’s next?!?!”  Since I’m not really in the habit of starting a project without finishing the first, I thought I’d break up that trend a little bit since the bathroom was a bit of a doozy and there’s only so much caulking, tiling, drywalling and grouting that a gal can do before she starts to go a little stir crazy!  Basically, our next project is going to be….

In fact, it’s already somewhat in progress.  New bedding is on order, new furniture has been delivered (more on that later), I got new lamps and I’m eyeing a couple of new nightstands and starting to brainstorm new paint colors…I can’t help it.  The room is starting to feel very drab/taupe/dull to me and I need a change.  I did a mini-switch about a year and a half ago but that old bedding is just not gonna make it to Christmas (especially since Maggie has made it her mission to jump into bed with us every single morning for her daily cuddle – even if it is only for 5 minutes).  Seriously, here are a few pics….and notice how she only gets up on Daddy’s side?  Hrmm…

Trying to appear coy..

UNDER the blanket, mind you...

...apologies to my husband for showing him shirtless but this is by far the cutest pic of Maggie!

Love that pooch.  She’s so damn cute….but back to the bedroom!  Basically, I’ve been sporting the same taupe-y style in the bedroom since 2004 when I made my first foray into design while still living at my parents house (which I don’t have a picture of).  The same essential paint colors and accessories have been following me around ever since then and the bedding is definitely starting to show its age.  You can see several iterations of the same basic design by looking at the pics below:

The Master Bedroom in our first Condo, circa 2007

First rental house in Oregon! Same motif

First iteration at the new house...

Starting to look a little tired, eh?  I thought so too.  I don’t know that we’ll get around to painting the room just yet, but we might tackle that as a somewhat “small” project sometime in the fall/winter.  We’ve become such old pros at painting anymore that pulling a room apart really is such a drop in the bucket compared to what we’ve done so far!  The hardest part now is painting rooms that are full of furniture.  Always a good time.  And for a really LONG project down the road…we’re kind of tossing around this sort of idea:

via

…pretty, huh?  The room needs a little pizazz.  And it needs glamour and WOW!  Right now it’s just saying….*yawn*….which isn’t a bad thing….except for when you’d like to spend time in your room reading or enjoying the view:

…time to get down to it.  Oh, and I’ll be showing pics of the new furniture here very soon…