Sunday, March 17, 2024 St. Patrick's Day

Happy Sunday! I have "enjoyed" too much of the day already having woken unable to go back to sleep at 3:30. Booo. Not being Irish I don't have much interest in St. Patrick's Day, but if you are celebrating, enjoy!

Kirby fully transitioned from his old food to the new and his bad poops stopped immediately. I emailed Purina this morning with all the details and the bag information and said I don't want reimbursement, I just want them to know they have a problem. We'll see what they say.

Scale was the same today. I was hungry when I woke up in the wee hours, but couldn't get myself out of bed to eat something. Hunger does start to return the second half of the week. Yesterday I had 3 eggs, 3oz ground beef with swiss/burger sauce concoction, pretzel crisps, a string cheese, small cup of blueberries and raspberries, grilled chicken thigh, and sweet potato. Not a small amount of food, but satisfying.

Kirby and I did a longer walk yesterday. I have 2 neighbors that do search and rescue with their trained dogs and one of the dogs got out without her collar and chased after a coyote into the forest. She was missing for 6 hours, but they brought 20 search and rescue people/dogs out to find the search and rescue dog. So we offered to walk a paved forest road that runs off my neighborhood to look. Good reason to always have a collar on your dog if there is a chance for them to get out even if they are highly trained. Fun fact, one of the dogs just had her big test trial locating human remains. I didn't ask how they simulated that. Yeesh!

Ironically, one of the lost dog's owners was complaining to me the other day that the HOA said dogs must be leashed or behind a fence after a new neighbor's dogs attacked another neighbor's dogs while they walked in front of the new people's house. She said hers were exceptionally trained so she didn't think the rule should apply to them!

It's beautiful out today. I will walk Kirby, but I need some time away from him. He is ALOT to be around 24 hours a day. I wish there was doggy daycare around here.

So that's all from AZ! Have a great day everyone.

I'm sure Kirby will become less needy over time. Too bad there isn't a good doggie daycare though. And no home based ones? I use a woman I found on Rover.com on Cape Cod who has a beautiful yard for dogs to run around in. She does both daycare and boarding. Maybe something like that will come up in your area?

Yesterday was a great day celebrating birthday/anniversary. We hung by the pool in the am, listened to music in the afternoon, then had a great meal on Sunset Key.

We are driving back to reality to get ready for our trip north tomorrow. 3 days to surgery - yikes!

In between we have a dinner at the clubhouse with our neighbors - corned beef and cabbage for St Patty's Day. I do love the stuff. But I am struggling to figure out what to wear as I have very little that is green. Oh well, I guess a print with some green in it will have to work.

Have a superb Sunday!

Greetings all

It's another great sunny day. The dogs are availing themselves of it by basking on the deck. Our deck is kind of a warm spot in this otherwise cool environment and they love it.

Studio buddy will be here soon so getting ready for head to explode. I have never understood people who talk all the time as I am more of a listener. DH family is all talkers except him not so much. All of them in one room was truly astonishing!

So while DH and buddy are arguing about modems my plan is to clean up my desk area. It's a long desk behind the living room sectional so its yards of surface. Covered with way too much stuff. The other mission for the week is Operation Jordan (our nephew) getting the guest room emptied out. Right now you cant get to the closet due to stuff. Insane. And still another mission is to deal with the old dead car and get a new one.

CC I am so glad you got Kirby;s food changed and that has fixed things. What works for one dog does not work for all. I wish there was doggie day care or even someone to take him on a walk for you. I had a friend in Oakland who boarded our dog at her home and also had a rowdy dogs day care where she would pick up a few dogs and take them to some big park to run. I bet your vet clinic has an employee or two who will dog day care once in awhile. Yeah I have wondered how they train cadaver dogs. And yeah, dogs running loose are most of the neighborhood issues around here. We have no HOA and it makes no difference. There used to be this huge male bloodhound who roamed the neighborhood and was worrisome if you had a dog on a leash. I cant imagine turning a dog loose anywhere except maybe the beach.

Liz I don't do much ST. patty day either. Yesterday I was wondering why everyone at the grocery was buying cabbage. Not my favorite food combination anyway. We are doing steak. Glad you had a great birthday/anniversary.

Well, time to begin adult behavior. Bill paying, letter writing, business emails and blah blah blah.

Diane S

Diane S

Operation Jordan! Love it. How wonderful your nephew is visiting. And how much you will later enjoy the cleaned up guest room. Although word might get out, and you could get an influx of visitors :)

Our DDs room became our guest room. Once I got it in order (a huge job) DH is not allowed to put ANYTHING in there, even if it's " just until he finds another spot". It's so nice to know it stays neat, and ready for when I need it.

Your HOA is on to something, as exceptionally well trained dogs can also do unpredictable things as proven by your neighbor's predicament. I like leash laws to protect me from the people who think their dog would never.... I love dogs, but every dog I have ever loved has surprised me at one point. One of my childhood dogs, the most passive, gentle, cuddly little miniature collie mix cornered my husband in my parents garage, showing teeth and growling, when we were dating. DH called for our other dog, and when he approached DH the collie mix relaxed. I had a hard time believing the story when DH came back in the house and told me, I mean Pokey? Pokey Puppy? But it happened.

Can't wait to hear in a couple of days Liz, that your surgery is complete, and everything went so well.

Another restful day. Slept in, read the paper, and now I am going to go work out in a bit. Then laundry, and some reading I hope. I need to read a book for my upcoming Controversy Club.

DH enjoys his Irish heritage. One of his grandmother's was 1st generation, and some with a bit of an Irish lilt. 6 of my great grandparents were born in Finland, so I have very strong connections to Finnish American culture. I heard a lot of Finn growing up, and took a lot of saunas. The "real kind", in a log cabin like structure on somebody's farm, with a wood stove for heat. Good memories. We celebrate St. Urhos Day on March 16th. It's a completely made up celebration created by a northern Minnesota Professor mid century. CC it may have spread to Michigan, as there are lots of Finns, especially in the U.P. My daughter asked me once why we don't pay attention to Columbus Day in Minnesota. I told her, because we know Leif Erickson beat him to the continent. :) The real reason is probably because we didn't have a large population of Italian immigrants.

I was thinking about my sometimes frustration with my rate of weight loss. My original goal was to lose the Tamoxifen gain, and I have exceeded that. I'm going to try and relax into this. Focus on eating nutritional food, and, since I'm not suffering big side effects, and my co pay is $40 a month, just stay on the meds. There appears to be benefits beyond just weight loss. And if I continue to lose, great! If I maintain, great! I'm okay where I'm at.

I haven't heard of St. Urhos Day! I know we've got a lot of Swedes in MI (our neighbors have a huge sign in front of their house with the Swedish flag that says "How Swede it is"), Poles (bringing us pierogi and paczki), Cornish (they came to work the mines, pastys are huge in the UP), and Dutch (Holland, MI complete with tulips and wooden shoes).

The summer camp I went to in Minnesota had one of those wooden sauna huts with hot rocks you spooned water over. It had giant wolf spiders in there... then you'd run and jump in the lake.