June 2007 Archives

This is Crystal Hawaii. She'll be coming in from Kansas on June 30th, but Christine is going to keep her until she is vetted, and then Kory and I will foster her. She is an old woman - 10 years!

Mouse is doing better. She finally went to the bathroom yesterday, and has gone twice since. So we're making progress. We were discussing what our "command" for going to the bathroom was going to be. Kory said we couldn't use "Go potty!" because that pretty much means "Let's go outside!" in our house. Kory suggested "Drop a deuce!", which is just silly. We're both stubborn, so last night night while she was going, I was standing there saying, "Go potty, go potty!" and Kory was saying, "Drop a deuce! Drop a deuce!" in this loud booming voice. I know, we're terrible, but it was funny.

Mouse has someone who is interested in her - we'll be doing a home visit on Sunday, so hopefully things will work out. He has a fenced yard, so he won't have to deal with this whole "not going potty on a leash" issue. And he also has an Italian greyhound, who I am very excited to meet.

So it seems like every family in our neighborhood has a dog. Seriously. 90% of them are either tied to a tree or front porch or kept in a garage. It's pretty sad and annoying. Our one neighbors have two small toy dogs, not sure which breed, but they are very yappy and bark like crazy at everyone when they're outside. But at least they have a fence and are well taken care of. The neighbors on the other side have a very neglected golden retriever that spends half its time in the garage and half its time tied to a tree in the back. I think this dog just really needs some attention, but he lunges and barks every time we walk by. So walking through our backyard is just ridiculous. The two small yappy dogs go crazy, the golden retriever goes crazy, and our dogs just walk along with us and pay no attention to them - that's just how greyhounds are. And then we get out of our yard and walk down the street and every other house has a small yappy dog tied to a porch that chokes itself while trying to attack our dogs.

Last night we took Chomps and Mouse to a field that's a few minutes away, and we just ran around with them. There's no fence, so it was pretty much me trying to catch up with Mouse as she ran around. They absolutely love running, and it's so awesome to see them happy like that. Mouse spotted a rabbit and she was practically doing flips in the air, she really is the cutest thing ever. And Chomps is so funny, I laugh every time I think about him running. He takes these huge strides and lifts his front legs really high, so it looks like he's stomping on the ground in slow motion. So goofy. We'll have to take Brooke and T out there tonight. T looooves running with people, so it's going to be fun.

I can't wait until we get a fence though, Kory's parents said we should have one by the end of the month - I sure hope so!

This has been the most stressful move ever. We spent a lot of time working at the new house and not much time actually organizing and packing, so our actual moving day was a mess. Thank goodness Kory's parents were there to help pack and clean.

So now we have a house full of boxes and bags and miscellaneous junk just everywhere. Half of all our stuff is in the garage because the house isn't finished yet. Here is the status:

Bathroom
Right now the only things finished in the bathroom are the toilet and some of the shower. The actual tub is in, but there aren't any finished walls/ceiling around it. There's also a huge hole in the wall (probably 1.5 x 3 ft.) that looks looks directly through the basement stairs and into the kitchen. There is a door in the kitchen that leads to the basement stairs, but it's doesn't stay shut, so we have to keep something in front of it so I don't have to see Kory going to the bathroom while I'm making my toast. Our washer and dryer are also going into the bathroom (because the basement is a very dark, wet, scary dungeon). So we won't have a washer and dryer until the plumbing is finished and a new wall is built in there.

Kitchen / Dining Room
We have laminate that's going to be put down in here, but it's not down yet, so currently there is a pretty gross linoleum floor down. We don't have a stove. We don't have a refrigerator. Well, we have a mini refrigerator which can hold a bottle of water, juice, and some greens for the reptiles. We don't have a dishwasher, which is fine - but our sink is only like 6 inches deep and is covered in paint and who knows what else. Oh, and there aren't any lights.

Kory's Studio
Kory's studio is the only room in the house that hasn't been worked on yet. It's quite a disaster. All the walls need to be patched and sanded and painted. Currently this room is our storage room. The majority of our boxes of stuff are in here. It will probably be a long time before this room is actually used as a studio.

Upstairs
The upstairs is probably as finished as it's going to get. The two bedrooms have new floors and are completely painted, except for the ceilings, which probably won't get fixed and painted now that the birds are in the house (paint fumes can be toxic). The closets need to have new drywall put in, we need T moulding for the flooring between rooms, and the doors and closet doors need to be put up.

Outside
The grass needs to be cut, but we don't have a lawn mower. There is a ton of garbage stacked up (lots and lots of carpet) on the porch that needs to be hauled out. We still don't have a fence, which is one thing we need desperately. The dogs are not used to being leash walked to go to the bathroom. And it isn't exactly easy to take 4 dogs out to go to the bathroom on leashes. If I'm by myself I'll only take one out at a time, while the other three sit in the house and whine their heads off. The worst thing about not having a fence, which we weren't even prepared for, is that Mouse will not go to the bathroom at all. Quite a few greyhounds have issues with going to the bathroom on lead, simply because they've never had to before. At the breeding farms and kennels, they're just turned out into pens, so being on lead while going to the bathroom is completely new. So Mouse has been at the new house for almost three days now, and has not gone to the bathroom at all outside. She's gone four times in the house - which is not many times for three days, so the poor girl must be holding it for a long time. I don't really know what to do at this point. When I take her outside she just stands there next to me and follows me whenever I walk around. She rarely sniffs the ground, just stands there like, "Okay, what now?" She didn't have any issues going outside at the old house. It's very frustrating, I think I could literally be outside with her for hours and she still wouldn't go. I think I'm going to buy a really long lead and see if that helps at all. Ugh.

I can't wait until we have a stove so I can eat a real meal! I am so sick of eating fast food. So unhealthy and unfulfilling. And I can't wait until I can get caught up on my sleep. Tonight is the first night in a long time that we won't have to be at one of the houses working - so I think we'll go do a couple loads of laundry and then I'll come home and go to sleep. Sleeeep.