Tuesday and Wednesday

 

Ember's first Tuesday morning mission:  let's skin the indoor football!

We also played several rounds of glow in the dark ball retrieve outside.  When she gets going on that rotation, it's a joy to watch.

Mom's Tuesday rejoicing:  What is it about running the vacuum, sweeping the tile floors, and shaking out the rugs that makes Mom feel so much better?  Dog laundry being done is also a good feeling.

Ember did not want to get in the car Tuesday morning.  She wanted to go rip up the wingback chair that never made it to the curb.  It is still sitting in a corner of the garage.  I had to resort to dragging her back to the car, then playing "hide and seek" to entice her into the back seat.

Nonetheless, she had a fine day at daycare and came home good and tired.

She waited patiently for me to brown the ground turkey that I then topped her kibble with, and she "licked the platter clean".  Good girl.

We had an uneventful evening.

Wednesday morning, this hu-mom was feeling kind of weary; she had a bit of a headache.  She took second Covid test.  Still negative.  I'm thinking the headache is most likely caffeine management I've been drinking more coffee and my dietary standards have been tossed out the window, showing that I'm still an anxiety over-eater (the uncertainty over the foster child and his siblings is a huge worry point).  I should be behaving myself better, with the medicalizing last Friday and this coming Friday. 

Regardless, I started feeling better after a couple of mugs of coffee, so my thoughts of caffeine management are reasonable.

I dragged out the dinosaur egg after puppy nap #1 so she would have something to play with on the patio and deck in the sunshine (it's a really nice day).

 Link to video of playing with it on the patio.

Anyway, here's your Wednesday "old, blonde, female" giggle:  noon time, I made Ember her "puppy salad" and put it down in her spot.  She ate some of it, but then after, I wanted to let her out on the deck to play with her dinosaur egg, only to be met with a sliding door that would not open!

I start to freak out.  I crate Ember long enough to take a screwdriver and the key and walk around the house to look for any obstacles that might be blocking that door.  Nothing.  I turn the key in the lock, it does its thing.  I go back inside, the latch locks when closed, but when unlocked, stops at about a quarter of an inch open.  

I look up the company that installed that sliding door (six years ago) and called their service department.  They could not schedule a tech to come out and diagnose the problem until the 10th of February.  Now, keep in mind, this is Ember's potty outside door!  I'm not thrilled with the "you have to take her on leash outside, around the house into the back yard to do her business" for two weeks!

While the lady on the other end of the line is looking things up... and I'm pacing anxiously, anticipating a $225 service charge if they try to virtually diagnose and still have to send a technician out.  I try the door one more time, and mutter to myself to stop, already, it's not going to change by simply trying again and again.  And then I look down, and see a little bit of metal, and a feature I had forgotten about (because I never use it) to "lock" the sliding door at a partially open position.  Guess what one of those positions is?  Yep, the quarter inch open position.  Looks like Ember must have scrabbled that foot switch (or I did, but I don't remember).  I can easily see how going in and out and manipulating that dinosaur egg over the threshold she could have flicked that switch.

When the window/door lady came back on the line, I gave her the church lady line:  "Never mind!"  Sigh.  Yep, I'm still old, blonde, and female.

When you stop laughing at this, choose to live your life, your way!  And keep on Sparking!

Monday's Mayhem

 The crazy thing is if I went through how Monday unfolded, could I even get it in the right chronological order?  I'm not sure.

Let's start with early morning.  I let the Prisoner in before I got Ember up and out, then fed.  We played glow in the dark retrieve.  We played with the Tearrible toy.  We played tug.  All the usual stuff.  Before 6:30 a.m., though, I got a message from my daughter in law that she had tested positive for Covid.  Yikes!

That kind of set the tone for the day.  During Ember's puppy nap #1, I looked up the expiration dates on the Covid tests I have on hand.  Three of them are about to expire, and three tests negative on days 1, 3, and 5 after exposure should ensure you don't have the thing.  So I took a test.  Granted, I only saw DIL and son through the car window on the opposite side while everyone was fussing over Ember Sunday, but if they are going to expire anyway...

Negative!

Anyway, took Ember on a practice car ride and picked her up some treats and a new toy between puppy naps.  When I took a bathroom break and did not contain her, she bit through my internet wire!  Yikes!

I managed to call the Internet company, and they looked up my account and said I was on the list of folks who were eligible for same day service calls.  They had a guy out here within the hour.  He not only replaced the wire, he also replaced the wireless router.  And there is joy in the web again. 

Ember had to cool her heels in the crate while the technician worked, but for the most part, she was clueless as to having done anything wrong.  

Got her up for her "follow the leader" walk with Frank and his hu-mom Susan.  Frank is a little touchy about energetic Ember, and kind of snapped at her a couple of spots in the walk.  She balked on the last leg (like she does) on the way back.  Susan slipped me a note with the name of an e-collar company on it.  This is one of those "the levels", the sound, the vibration, and at the highest level the shock.  She used it to help Frank over his pulling at the leash.  My heart sank at the very thought of putting such a thing on Ember.  Susan said she never had to use the shock, the vibrate seemed to be enough to remind Frank of her expectations.

Carl has such a collar, too.  I only ever put it on him once, and never used more than the jiggly vibration, either.  Mostly I have not used it with him at all.  The very suggestion that I might have to put on his "bark collar" (his particular issue was his barking) was usually enough to remind Carl that Grandma likes a quiet puppy.

Anyway, I sulked a bit internally over the very suggestion but eventually came to peace.  Just 'cause someone suggests something doesn't mean you are obligated to do it.

Simultaneous to the internet drama and the co-dog walk, the fur was flying (figuratively) across town.  Remember the foster grandchild?  Yep.  He, his older brother, and his younger sister were removed from their birth dad's home again.  Son and DIL have their little one back since after school, and Carl and the birds were rejoicing!  

My heart goes out to these kids and their being kind of yo-yo'd around by the system!  Thankfully, my son and DIL had kept his space and special things safely there for "respite" times he might visit, so he should feel loved and cherished tonight.  He's only been back with birth dad for less than a month full time, with a couple of weekend overnight stays before that.

Lots of last-minute arrangements for transport (the other foster grandparents are stepping up for school transport tomorrow) and some shopping because when they remove these kids they come with a bare minimum of "stuff".  DIL sent videos to the private group of the reunion time.  They will have him until the next court thing changes something.  Praying for children in such situations!

To top off the day, got a text message from the trainer, who has been ill today, and is waving off tomorrow's training sessions with me and a couple of other ladies.  After today, I'm totally OK with that.  Ember will go to daycare, anyway, and I'll work on housecleaning.

Choose when you have a choice.  Find a way to choose your attitude if you can't choose anything else.  Choose to LIVE your life.  And Spark on.

Weekending with mom

 

Still working on the dinosaur egg.  It's pretty indestructible, but Ember gets very excited when it comes out to play, so Mom limits the time that it is.  Ember loves BIG toys!  Which is probably why she likes to destroy furniture.  Would she have made a great member of a pack that brings down big game?

On Saturday we did quite a bit of toss and retrieve in the yard.  With the rubber rocks and with balls, both.

It was chilly and mom didn't want to freeze her hands off with a leash walk.  We did get a car ride to take recycles to the center, and that earned us a trip through the drive-thru when Ember got a dog-bone (but no whipped cream, that's a one day a week thing, on Sunday).

The Sunday morning family health news is good.  Nobody testing positive for the 'vid beyond my son.  His wife, her mom, and I are still good to go.  

Ember and I practiced "going out and going in" on the leash at the front steps today, before going on a car ride.  We also pulled out a new Tearrible toy.

These toys are velcro'd together, intended to be torn limb from limb by the puppy, then put back together for another round.  

Carl loves his, Ember loves hers, too.  We pulled this little one apart three times today, and when I put it back together during her puppy nap #2, I inserted the "optional" squeaker, as when she pulled it apart the first time, she uncovered the pocket where the squeaker goes.

We did take a Sunday afternoon walk around the block, as the temperature got up to nearly 40℉.  We had some stubborn pulling toward the park.

I ended up invoking Carl's name to convince her to start heading toward home.  "I know where Carl lives, and we can go for a ride in the car.  Mommy has to drive us to see Carl and his people."  At this point she gave up on trying to pull me down toward the long grass and accepted treat enticements to head home.

Shortly after we got home, I fed her, then we did go for a ride in the car, to the high school where the former foster GC and his brother were practicing basketball.  The boys and my son and DIL came over and petted her through the car window.  Her tail and whole back end were wagging.  She does so love people!

She tucked in for the night quite happily, having had "a good day".  I texted the lady next door and we made arrangements for a "follow the leader" leash walk tomorrow afternoon.  It's supposed to top 50 and will be a great day to be outside!

This next week we will have three daycare days, as I have the second half of the annual medicalizing on Friday, then on Sunday the 2nd, she'll get her "spa day".  

Keep on choosing to live your life!  Spark on!

Meanwhile

 

Ember looks very "puppylike" in this photo from Wednesday afternoon.  She had gone down to the basement level and found my 4-pound weighted exercise ball (they used to call these "medicine" balls, never quite understood why).  She picked it up, and wagging tail in full use, proudly trotted it up the stairs and into the X-Pen to begin deconstruction.

Aside:  she really has not grown into those paws yet, has she?

Yes, I had to run the vacuum on Thursday while she was at daycare, to clean up the little fragments she chewed off.

It reminded me of once upon a time when my baby brother (you'd remember him as MOBYCARP from SparkPeople) and I skinned and unwound a golf ball just to figure out what it was made of!

Anyway, the blue cover is a very thin layer, then there is brown rubber stuff under it.  At about this level of deconstruction, I distracted her, got her settled for the evening, then put the ball away.  To be continued, of course.

My little girly is going to get an extra day of daycare on Friday, because I have my annual Medicare wellness appointment, and a fasting blood draw coming up.

Things started getting interesting Wednesday afternoon/evening.  My son had been feeling ill since Monday.  I asked if he'd taken a Covid test and could rule that out.  He had not yet, as of Wednesday afternoon, so he took one, at his wife's suggestion.  Sure enough, after five years of "the virus" being present on our shores, my son had his first positive test for it.  I'm still a unicorn, but I was with them on Sunday the 19th and of course hugged my kid!  

So, the two elders who were at the basketball clinic, DIL's mom and myself, are monitoring our own health.  So far, so good.  But also taking precautions.  I called my doctor's office to ask advice about Friday's appointment.  As long as I'm symptom free, they said come on in, and if I do develop symptoms, still come in, but wear a mask.  I was already masking for my trainer workouts... started up again when I was anticipating my cataract surgery last October, and just never stopped masking there.

Friday Ember went to daycare on a non-trainer day so that I could go to my annual Medicare wellness check without worrying about her being "stuck" in her crate at home.  I was fasting, no symptoms showed up, and I opted not to wear the mask, even though I carried it along.  I took my breakfast with me and munched on it while talking to the PA.  She duly noted the weight loss since a year ago, I credited the puppy, as I generally do.

Saturday morning as I'm typing now:  still symptom free.  I asked the PA on Friday about when it would be considered "safe" to have my next booster.  My last one was in May, 2024.  She said as long as I remain symptom free for another week or so, blessings on getting my next Covid shot.  But if I *do* get Covid, wait 3 months after recovery before getting another shot.  It has become part of the "normal", after five years in the wild.

Keeping on.  Choose to live your life!  Spark on!

Dog TV

 

When it's cold outside, let's snuggle on the couch and watch Dog TV.  When I was checking Facebook today, I saw a post from a friend who has recently (with her hubby) adopted a pair of Spaniels.  Cutest pups, of course, but the photos she posted were of the dogs watching TV with their paw-rents.  She captioned the one where the pups were awake and the ones where they were sleeping with the team names of the football games they were watching when the photos were taken.

I had to laugh just a bit.  Ember really does watch what's on the screen when it's Dog TV, i.e. videos of dogs, in slow motion, with their humans, doing fun things like running at the beach, or in the woods, or in a park... with soft piano music playing and sometimes nature sounds.  It's a calming thing for a pup, and I use it as Ember's sleepy time music, leading into her naps / crate time.  She also watches a bit of old episodes of Murder She Wrote with me.  I'm on a "news fast" of late, but I did notice Sunday morning that TikTok had gone dark on my phone, overnight.  I'm not a frequent user, but my kid sis finds things on it that she likes to share.  

Later in the day, TikTok went live again.  Can we ever keep up?

Sunday Ember was really starting to feel the confinement associated with the cold weather.  I foolishly had put out the raised dog bed again.  This time, she totally destroyed it.  

This is only the beginning.  She shredded the fabric, gnawed off the plastic connectors.  Can't do a whole lot about the metal posts, and it's now all in the trash.  Until next time.

Every so often I give her a plush toy that I know she's just going to shred to bits.  Sunday it was a fresh one, a burlap wrapped steer head toy.  The fluff flew almost immediately.

I fed Ember her supper a shade on the early side and tucked her into her after-supper crate time.  Then I went over to watch Foster Grandkid and his brother practicing at basketball in a YMCA clinic.  This brought back a lot of memories of my son's childhood.  We had him in organized youth sports from about age 5 or 6 onwards.  Basketball was his favorite.  FC's brother's "One more shot" begging brought back strong ones of fading light at the schoolyard when my son was young.

Many moons ago.  I think he was six or seven at the time.

I bypassed the family "McDonald's" trip afterward.  I got home, gave Ember her "last call" on schedule, and got to bed myself.

Monday morning I woke to the phone app proclaiming it was -1℉.  My kid sis translated that to -19℃, but my little calculator app would clock that as being -2℉.  Perhaps across town at her house it was.  Either way:  BRRRRR!

Ember agrees!  Too cold to stay out longer that essential.  She still kept asking, as though I could control what the door opened to.  But when pressed on the "in or out" issue, she consistently chose to come back in.

OK, I admit it, I have been watching the frou-frou in DC, and whatever my innermost thoughts about DJT, I have to admit he knows how to put on a show.  PT Barnum had nothing on him.  He views himself as a producer, and one of his biggest criteria for selecting folks to serve him is do they present well on TV.  

'nuff said about that.

Choose to keep on living your own life!  May all be free to do so.  May all the worries and fears be just that:  worries and fears, and not realities.  May we each keep making the best and kindest choices we can in our own daily spheres.  Spark on!

Oh, and I brought out the dinosaur egg today!

Some of the new toys

Yeah, I got sucked in to a Jurassic Park themed "super chewer" box.  This mosquito inside ambergris ball was part of it.  Bigger size, but Ember can put her jaws around it.  Glow in the dark ball included for size reference.  The glow-ball is tennis ball sized.  I would say the dinosaur ball is softball sized.

This squeaky chew is a duplicate of one she destroyed in minutes a month ago.  This time the squeaker has lasted three days, so far, but of course the woven material is starting to fray.

Another size comparison shot, this one of the "giant dinosaur egg" from the Jurassic collection.  Same size glow in the dark ball as in the top photo.

I started putting this together on Friday evening.  It was dark, the wind was howling as the front came through.  I was anticipating the cold that is coming.  Ember had her "last call" and was tucked in for the night.  I put an extra blanket on the bed for myself.

Saturday morning dawned cold (13℉) and Ember did her business in two different sessions.  The second one, I stayed up on the deck and let her go out in the yard on her own.

She was having trouble with "you're in, you're out" related to the sliding door to outside, but we continue to work on that lesson.

It got too cold even for her, after sitting in this posture for a little while.  

Saturday's first adventure was a drive to get dog treats.  I left her in the car while I dashed into a store that I will not name because about half of my acquaintance are boycotting it for social issues reasons.  The second adventure was filling the gas tank and going through the coffee drive-thru.  She got her pup cup of the week on Saturday.

She had such a good day Friday with the weather being mild.  She got to interact with other people and with Frank (another dog).  Saturday she's getting up to mischief if I'm not right with her.  But we made it through the day.  

Sunday promises to be even colder.  We are under a Cold weather advisory.  Apparently, the National Weather service has renamed "Wind Chill Advisory" to Cold weather advisory.  This advisory lasts from now through noon Tuesday, with Wind Chills in the minus 20 to minus 30 Fahrenheit range.  Brrrr!

Stay warm my friends!  

Choose to live your life!  And Spark on!

Blog delayed but no earth shattering news

 

One of the more recent toy acquisitions.  We are learning to enjoy tug.  Sort of.  

Both of these photos are from the sunny afternoons on the deck.  The temperatures may be low (got into the single digits F in the overnight Sunday to Monday) but it's not as bitterly cold as many January months have been in my lifetime.  

Monday had its ups and downs.  I knew it would be challenging as the 4th day "home with Mom" before Tuesday's next day care time.  We took three car rides.

The first was a "ride to nowhere" in the dark of the morning, just to distract her from the leather couch that she's still working on deconstructing.  The second was a trip to the grocery store.  This time I left her in the car while I dashed in to get saltine crackers and a small packet of dog chews.  

The last one was a sight-seeing tour to go find the KenL-Inn dog place.  I wanted to check where the pavement ended and get a look at it, as it has been some years since I went out there.  I'm considering it as an alternative boarding/day care space for Ember.  I understand they do dog training classes out there, as well as having wooded space on the property for some of their activities when a dog is boarded there.  We did not stop, just drove through the lot, as I hadn't called first.  Bit by bit.

Tuesday is one of Ember's Day Care days, and my personal trainer day, too.  Ember was ready to go early, so I took her on over.  It felt cold outside, as it was breezier than Monday had been.  While she was playing, I got my workout, a shower, unpacked some deliveries, baked a loaf of frozen bread dough, did some laundry, and vacuumed.  The electric company was out replacing a streetlight.  They had to get into the pedestal in my backyard to do some fuse work, just as I was getting ready to go pick up Ember.

I started writing this several days ago, then kind of abandoned it...  

It's now Friday morning.  Ember went to day care both Tuesday and Thursday.  She has some new toys (deliveries I unpacked), but I'm pacing when they get introduced.  I made it to my trainer sessions both Tuesday and Thursday.  Next week looks much the same.  What will be different is the weather.  We are having a couple of very nice (for January) days, and then over the weekend and into Monday and Tuesday next week (the 19th to the 21st) we will be hit with our piece of the "Polar Vortex" the news folks are talking about.  Still, I compare it to January temperatures of the past, and it doesn't sound as bad.

Today's plan:  I have recycles loaded in the car, and figure one of our "practice car rides" can be to take them to the center.  And today is the day that we will be attempting a "pack walk" with Frank and Susan... and hopefully Julie will be coming along.  Once greetings have been established, fingers crossed for another avenue of exercise for the pup.

Keep on making the choice to live your life!  Spark on.