Confessions of a Coffee Junkie

My morning started off really good, I picked up a friends dog and dropped her off for boarding. From there I went to the gym, had a good 45 minute work out (which would have been a full hour if I had not gotten lost in Atlanta Station). I left in PLENTY of time to get to work but thanks to every freaking red light between Marietta and Midtown, I was 10 minutes late for work.

Work was really good tonight. I worked with a dog that is sadly obsessed with me and will do anything to try and get my attention, and over the last two weeks I've some pretty nasty bruises from on my legs.

I think Tazie has a sty on his right eye but I'll ask the Vet tomorrow when I take him in for a play date with Mugsy.

Other than that, nothing new to report, oh except that I've lost 11 lbs in the past 3 months, I'm happy with that and hope to see more of a change since I'm going to the gym now.

In an attempt to get back in the habit of writing I am going to try and blog more to help combat the writer's block.

So I'm on a health kick, again! My boss goes to a gym and they are doing a smaller version of the biggest looser and she asked if I wanted to do it with her, so I said yes. Yesterday was my first session with a private trainer. I tknow that I will be happy with the hard work later, but man does my legs and arms hurt. I've never done weight training before so it's really getting to my legs and arms but as I say it is worth the end result.

xtown_traffic and I are going to a blues and blueberry festival in Norcross today, We are looking forward to one of the local blues bands called Travel by Train. Hopefully it will be a fun day, to bad Tazie can't go with us.

I'm sure I will post pictures later.

I remember when I loved to just sit down and read my LJ and comment on my friends posts. It's been a long time since I logged in and honestly I'm not sure why.

Life has been pretty good, still stressing over money matters, but xtown_traffic is still looking for a job, people are just not hiring and not hearing anything back from the people he has applied to doesn't help our outlook on matters.

I'm almost done with my course. A friend at work is taking the same course as me and she told me today that her goal is to catch up and pass me. Now I don't know that I've really ever been very competitive before in my life but I find myself being very competitive now. I felt the urge to make damn sure I finish before her. It's nice though that we can help keep each other in check with our studies. Same friend has asked me to join a "biggest Looser" thing that her gym is doing, so I'm going tomorrow to sign up for it.

I have been doing really well at home and I'm seeing a steady drop in inches but not much pound wise. With the step up in exercise I've noticed an increased amount of pain in my left knee. Finally giving in and following the hubby's advice I went to the doctor. She told me what I already knew, that I've done a hell of a lot of damage to my knee. She said this was not the knee she would expect to find on someone my age. We ended that visit with an order to stay on the anti inflammatory that I've been taking for a year, and a steroid shot. All I can say about that shot is that it hurt like hell. Though I do have to say that now almost a week since and my knee is feeling better than it has in several months.

We spent the 4th at my parents, it was actually nice. I'm still not used to Vicky being so nice to me, but I'm working on it. I was speechless when she said she was very proud of me this weekend. Of course I did my standard self defense and reasoned why she shouldn't be. I wish I could just learn to accept nice things about myself. Maybe one day, I hope.

The hubby and kids are doing well. xtown_traffic has an eye appointment on Thursday with the retina specialist, it's like his 6 month check up. His eye is slowly getting better and he used the words "slowly improving" today. Hopefully Dr. Stalman will be pleased.

Maggie is hungry.... so what's new? We got started on her passport last week so she is well on her way to being able to go to the UK without quarantine.

Tazie... well he is having some issues but we are working on them.

I've not really worked with Tazie on anything except not running away when he goes outside. (Which by the way he is still grounded and not allowed out off leash) I've been reading about training tricks and different levels of obedience training. One of the tricks was to teach your dog how to "put your toys away" So I started working with Taz on this tonight. In the span of a 5 minute game of fetch, he was 85% dead on at going to get his toy and dropping it into a little basket. It's just the first step but it's a big one and even when I was moving the basket around he was still dropping the toy into it.

I'm such a proud mom... as if no one could tell!!!

I realize that it's been a while since I posted, though I wanted to update how things are going I really can't think of anything to say.

Home:
Is really good! Stressed about a few things but lets face it, in this economy most people are stressed about things. xtown_traffic has applied for a few jobs but we have not heard back from anything yet. We went to see Star Trek the other day and he could see most of what was going on. We both enjoyed the movie. I need to go and apply for a passport, and we need to win the lottery so we can move to Wales.

Tazie & Maggie:
Maggie is still starving. I've never had an inside cat before so I'm still adapting to living with a such a bossy cat and her thoughts that feeding her should come first no matter what!
Over all she and Tazie are getting alone better and better every day. Occasionally Tazie will snap at her but it's normally when she riles him up or walks on his head when he is under the covers, or when she tries to get in his basket with him. Maggie got micro chipped on Tuesday, we are working on getting her passport as well.
It was raining off and on all day and as we were leaving Dekalb Animal Services it started pouring. When we got in the car, xtown_traffic was holding her crate in his lap and I could see that she was snuggled under the towel just peeking out. I was able to get a pic with my phone.




Tazie on the other hand is not behaving like a good citizen! The other day he chased the neighbor across the street into her car and every time she thought he was gone, she would open the door and get out only to be chased back in by Tazie. So he is now grounded and not allowed outside without being on a leash. Hopefully I will get to work some day shifts again soon so we can start taking Tazie out again and hopefully get him back to where he likes other people again. I still don't understand how he got to this point of not wanting strangers anywhere near him, but I know how to help fix it.

School:
Going great, I have a 95 average. I just got a 100 on a graded project where I had to read some case studies and out of a list of breeds I had to choose the best and worse and explain why. I've always been good with breeds though, so I did enjoy doing that project. I have set myself a goal to be done with the course in 2 months. I think I just might be able to make that goal.

Work:
Well... it's work! I'm just thankful to have a job in this economy.

one of those days where I just can't do anything right, and everything I say is taken the wrong way. I'm just going to go to bed and hope that tomorrow is somehow different from every other day this week.

We decided a few days ago to go to Lake Lainer today. So we set off late morning and had a lovely trip up to the lake and found a nice spot near the water to have our lunch and let Tazie run around off leash. We had to do a bit of shopping first because we forgot to bring an emergency towel to dry off the pup.

( more lake pictures )

On the way home we were less than 2 minutes from home and this car full of kids pulled out from a side street and hit us. It really didn't do that much damage to Sally, she has a thick scratch down Giles' door and a little dent near the bottom of the door. It was enough to send me into a panic attack and then to bed with a stress headache when we got home. After our nap we went to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner because I was craving a salad and they have the best salad bar in town.

For now I'm off to do laundry and try to get some things done in the house. I've managed two days off in a row so I'm happy with that, I have plenty to do in the house.

We went out for a little dinner and took Tazie with us. He had fun and got to get lots of corn chip treats.

So... with Formula Drift only 16 days away, I've finally went through my pictures from last here and I'll post a few of them here, but I posted about 15 on my facebook page so if you want to see more of them have a look there.




( follow me for more pictures )

Meet Bruin, a very young Great Pyrenees (don't let his size fool you, he is literally a big baby!)

Well one day last week we noticed that Bruin's back was turning pink. I asked Dad at pick up about the pinkness of his coat and I was told a very funny story about how he became Pink.

See Bruin has this rather large RED cloth covered crate for the days that he stays at home. Bruin has learned how to slide the liner out of the bottom of it and put his legs through the holes and walk around the house with the crate on his back, thus rubbing off pink dye on his back. I can just picture this in my mind and thought I would share with all my friends.

It's hard not to be depressed when the person you love is depressed, and discouraged.

Our grand plan for the day was to go and see the Terra Cotta Soldiers at the Art Museum. So I get up this morning and go to buy our tickets only to find out they they were sold out for most of the afternoon. Disappointed we changed our plans to go out for a while, we had some shopping we needed to do and we wanted to grab lunch out and maybe have a rice pudding for dinner.

As we drove though Decatur nothing looked appealing and I said that I wanted some variety, and something different from what we normally have when we go out. So we drove down to Virgina Highland, and looked around for something new. We passed a little place called Pura Vida, it's a latino tapas & bar.

Let me just say this first, I did want variety, but I was blown away!

Feeling a bit adventurous we took the menu and went in. I must say, I wouldn't have known half of what was on that menu if we did not watch so much Top Chef. We ended up ordering a few tapas plates and shared them.

According to the menu this is what we had:
Plantain toast with pumpkin seed & tamarind jam,

Ceviche de camarones, which was aji-lime broth marinated shrimp, onions, cilantro spicy nori,
canchita corn, and andinean potatoes,

Pollo al tamarindo, Tamarind chicken wings, puffed rice & cilantro, mango limon-mandarina puree

Ventresca de trucha caramelizada, caramelized "smoked" ranbo trout belly, lemon mint & torrontss-lemon verbena emulison

and this...



Mango Y Foie
foie gras-green mango minin terrine with a mango molasses center, cuajada a la tipitapa, cocoa nibs & green mango oil.

All I can say is... DAMN!!!

xtown_traffic just said he has a mental list of things he is getting me to try, he ticked off heart, because we had beef heart skewers a while back at a Peruvian restaurant. Today he was able to tick off foie gras which is something he has had before, and even though I had to close my eyes and was almost in mental anguish to force myself to try it, I really enjoyed it once I put what it was out of my mind.

Miss Maggie Cat has been up to no good all morning. We took our recycling on Wednesday so our paper box in the office has been empty and she has of course staked her claim to it. I put one of the paper bags we use in the box and this is what we found this morning...



We have such a silly cat!

One of the trainer's I have been working with in training Tazie said that I should try this homeopathic supplement for Tazie's anxiety. It's called Rescue Remedy, and though I wasn't sure it was working, today I saw it's effects. I didn't hear his "get away from me before I kill you" bark from the yard once today, and the guy in the small yard said he was actually good and didn't jump at the gate all day.

I'm very pleased!!

It seems that lately I've had way to much negativity around me and it's pulling me under with it. I'm not sure how to get it all out of the way of attaining my goals. There has to be a comfortable middle somewhere right?

I've grown tired of trying to do the right thing all the time and constantly feeling like what's the point? It seems as if there are a few people that no matter what happens they are so full of themselves and there's no room to breath when their egos are in the room with you.
I've decided that when I'm off the clock, I'm not going to check my work email, and when I leave for the night, I'm leaving work there, and not letting it rule my life anymore. I use to have friends and I used to do things that were fun. The last year has really taken it's tole. I have to find a way to enjoy things again.

Anyway I'm just rambling now...

This is Layla!

I don't ever want anyone to say that my dog has a short attention span again. Tuesday when I came home from work xtown_traffic said that he thought there was something in the vent in the our dinning room. We went to check but didn't hear anything.

Last night when I came home he said that he had heard it again, and went we went to check it out again, Tazie caught whiff of what ever it is and has taken watch duty. He has barely moved since, he did manage to forget about it for about 5 hours when he finally came in our bedroom and jumped up on the bed sometime after 2am, and as soon as we got back inside from going out this morning he has been right back there just looking so intently in the vent.

Needless to say I called our management company and they will have someone call me about coming out to take a look and see what it is.

So I promised an update so here it is...

Home... Getting better every day. xtown_traffic is feeling more and more confidant that he will be able to work again with minimal help from the magnifying program. He is still amazing me everyday with what he can see compared to before the surgeries. He did not gain back as much vision as the doctor had hoped but he thinks that there my still be some improvement and gave us 4 months before the next visit. We are still doing drops but on a "as needed" basis.

Kids... Tazie goes to take his CGC (AKC's Canine Good Citizen award)tomorrow. We did a workshop two weeks ago tomorrow and it went well until she got to the part where she had to pick up his feet. Well.... that didn't go so well and he tried to bite her. After which we went to work and had a vaccine clinic with the Vet that is moving into our building and well you can guess where I'm heading with this right??? Yeah he tried to bite the vet. Then he screamed so loud while getting his shots that I cried in the lobby because it was hurting me that he was hurting so bad! From there it all went to hell in a hand basket, by 1pm on Sunday he couldn't walk. I was freaking out and the trainer came by at work to talk to me about Tazie and was shocked to see him in so much pain. I moved him up front to the lobby and put him in a crate so he could relax without hearing all the other dogs in the back and called the emergency vet's office. They told me to give him a benadryl and bring him in for a large dose of benadryl. I gave him one and then by 8:30 he was walking a little bit so I decided not to take him to the emergency vet, and wait until the morning to take him to his vet. Another benadryl and by 11pm he was walking out into the yard to potty but very slowly.
We stayed on the benadryl for a few days and it took him a while but he is back to almost normal. However that being said he is not letting many people at work touch him. So I've decided that daycare is just to much for him right now. He is only going to go on sunday when I have time to watch who is in the yard with him and how they treat him, (meaning that they make him sit and not let him gate crash, or jump at the gate all the time, or sit at the gate and whine because I'm not in there with him.) He is also on a homeopathic stress reliever and that seems to be helping but I'm just not sure yet.

Maggie is, well... Maggie!! She is however starting to play more with Tazie and they are a riot sometimes.

School... Going very well. I'm holding a 98 avg, so that makes me happy. I'm enjoying reading my study guides and putting my new found understanding of dog behavior to good use. I'm going to be teaching my first private lesson to Mugsy's new parents starting next week and oh yeah there is a whole long drawn out ordeal that brought Mugsy back into our home for a couple of days before going to his new parents.

Work... we are starting to pick up again and that's a good thing! Today was the first Friday of the spring break season and we had 50 check-ins and damn if I'm not tired tonight.


Other than that everything is going well. I've not been online much but that should change next week. <lj user="xtown_traffic>'s new laptop arrives on Monday and my new ram should be here tomorrow if I'm lucky and then it's a upgrade to 4 Gigs of ram and vista for my laptop and all will be well. (or as well as anything can be when it's microsoft!!) :o

I promise we are not dead, I've just been busy and haven't found much time to be on the computer. I'll update more in a few days.