Meeting The Bloggess

Do you read The Bloggess? If not you should. She's absolutely hilarious.

She has also written a book and on Monday last week she was in San Antonio doing a book signing so Julie and I went to see her.



Copernicus and Juanita

Right off the bat she was funny. At this Barnes and Noble they do their signing upstairs which also happens to be the Children's Section. Let's just say, that what she had to say was not for children's ears. She even apologized before she got started, but basically this is what happens when there at kids at The Bloggess' book reading:

Earmuffs.



She then went on to read an excerpt from her book about poop.



Julie and I have the sense of humor of 12 year old boys and find poop stories to be some of the funniest stories out there so we basically laughed our asses off the whole time.

It was a well organized signing and they went row by row to meet her and have her sign our books. We were in the third row so we got to meet her pretty quickly.





I also got to pose with the famous trio.



I've got a couple other books that I'm finishing up before I start her book, but I'm sure it's going to be great and can't wait to read it!

Rufus

We've been having some issues with Rufus. He's the sweetest, cutest boy when he's not trying to eat the chickens or running on a rampage through the house. About 6 months or so the dogs all started fighting. I'm not talking the occassional growl. We're talking snarling, growling, biting, viscious fighting. It was almost always Rufus that started it and he was almost always picking on Riley. Every second of the day the energy was in the air. Rufus became extremely possive of us and his things. He wouldn't let anyone near us or a fight would break out. Heaven forbid another dog would walk through a doorway before him or to even think about it.

Then it got really bad. He started to terrorize Riley and Riley definitely got bumped to bottom of the totem poll because Reese even started picking on him. If a fight happened with him and Rufus, Rufus would pick him up by the neck and shake him. Riley would try to stick up for himself, but as the smallest in the bunch he didn't have much going for him. It started to get scary and not just because of the fights. The other dogs wouldn't let him go outside. They wouldn't let him eat. They wouldn't let him go to the bathroom. He lived under our bed for weeks.

Nothing we were doing was helping. No amount of training or seperating was helping. It got to the point if we tried to train Rufus and another dog wanted to participate, a fight would break out. It was exhausting and we need we needed to change something. I talked to our vet about it and she wasn't very reassuring. Rufus was finally an adult in dog years and was trying to stake his claim. With two older dogs no one was taking it well and what about poor Riley? He wouldn't keep living under the bed and having accidents all over the house.

We decided we needed to rehome Rufus. He's a good dog and really does know what he should and shouldn't do. If we told him to stop he would, but that didn't mean the other dog would and Rufus wouldn't have anything to do with that. If he was never allowed to cross that point he'd be fine, but we couldn't always keep it from happening. We talked and decided to list him on rescue sites and to see if our local Humane Society could take him. We were willing to wait to find the right fit for him. About 2 weeks later my coworker called. Her niece was looking for a dog and liked Jack Russells. She works from home, goes on daily walks and he'd be the only dog. It sounded like the perfect situation.

Two weeks ago we took Rufus over to meet her and things went really well. He warmed up to her fairly quickly (which is amazing for him and shows just how far he's come along) and we decided to leave him there to see how they continued to get along. As of today, things are going great. Rufus is loving his daily walks and it's great that he has someone that can spend plenty of time with him and get him the exercise that he needs. Plus it's great to know who he's with and to be able to get the occassional update on him.

That day we came home and already there was such a change at our house. There was peace once again in our home. The change in the other dogs was almost immediate. Reese and Riley are best friends again. Riley is back to his loveable self again and only sleeps under the bed at night. In a way it's sad that we are almost happy about it, but it really shows that it was the right decision for everyone.

What I'm Growing This Year

Somehow I managed to never post this one and I wrote it back in March. I found it trying to navigate blogger's new look.

This past weekend I got the garden planted. I was feeling a bit lazy this year and didn't start a single seed. Originally I planned to buy my plants online because I did want some specialty or heirloom varieties. I placed an order and then found out it wasn't going to ship until April. I decided to hold out though because what else was I going to do?

Then this weekend I was buying some soil to add to the bed and wandered through the plant aisle. Low and behold they had about a 101 different varieties in the nursery including numerous heirloom varieties. I promptly pulled up my order on my phone, called the company and canceled. Not only was I saving some money, but I was also getting my plants earlier than April.



A word of advice - make sure you fix the hole in your chicken wire around the garden before you spread out your soil. Otherwise when you're not looking your chickens will take over and start tearing up your freshly raked soil.


So here's what I'm growing:
2 Striped Roman Tomatoes
1 Better Boy Tomato
1 Beefmaster Tomato

1 Brandywine Tomato

4 Golden Boy Tomato

1 Yellow Pear Tomato

1 Super Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato
2 Camelot Bell Peppers
2 California Wonder Bell Peppers
2 Jalapeno Peppers
Parris Island Cos (Romaine Lettuce)
Bibb Lettuce
Red Chanteney Carrots

Blue Lake Green Beans
Straight Neck Yellow Squash

Dark Green Zucchini


I went a little tomato crazy this year and planted 11. That's only because the Golden Boys came in a 6 pack and I was only able to give away 2. Had I known that the chickens would also be planting tomatoes I would have cut back.

So what are you growing this year? Or should I ask, since this post is over a month late, how is your garden going?

Vegas Birthday

I write nothing but belated posts lately it seems....so keeping with that here's my mini recap of my 30th birthday weekend in Vegas. At least the parts that I can share!

We arrived pretty late and did some gambling and walking around near the hotel. Easy night. We kicked off our first morning at the Peppermill which was right next to our hotel. Seriously, you must eat here and you must come hungry because the portions are HUGE.



There were pancakes the size of large dinner plates and you got several of them. Plus nothing beats them starting off with big cups of coffee and it's neon awesomeness at it's best.



We spent the rest of the day walking the strip







and did a little more eating.



On our way back to the hotel to get ready for the Beatles Love show we caught the Sirens show at Treasure Island. You can seriously skip this as it's nothing but strippers with bad singing teasing some pirates.



The next morning we headed down to the south end of the strip, met up with my friend Misty who flew in to celebrate with me, and did some more sight seeing.



My friend Jill from college lives in Vegas and suggested an awesome Italian restaurant off the strip for dinner.



Afterwards our group headed back to the strip.

I think I look like a 30 year female version of Harry Potter.



Around 3 am John was starting to feel tired and asked when my birthday was going to be over. I told him, "Not until I go to bed!" I posted this picture awhile later saying, "it's 5 o'clock somewhere and it's still my mother f'cking birthday!" Which had become my favorite saying of the night and we may or may not have made a dance to it for every time I yelled it. I can neither confirm nor deny that claim.



Our night ended very late (or early depending on your opinion). We woke up pretty late the next day and headed to Hash House A Go Go in the Imperial. OMG Yum. Another place with ridiculous portions.



Chicken and Waffles. Their chicken is amazing and there are strips of bacon cooked into the waffles. Great hangover food.

That night we met up with another friend from college and headed out to Freemont Street.



I so want to go down this slide at the Golden Nugget.



Our next day and Misty's final day was spent doing the couple of things we hadn't done yet. Like In and Out Burger.



John says get the Double Double Animal Style and it's delicious.

We did a Coke tasting.



I finally got my giant drink that I had been asking for all night on my birthday.



We said goodbye to Misty and spent the rest of the day eating more and going to see that really crappy X Burlesque show at the Flamingo. We had gotten free tix, but not even that made the show worth it. There's one girl that was anorexic looking. John nicknamed her Skeletor.

We spent the rest of our last night back at the hotel - the Riviera which we actually enjoyed quite a bit.



We had great service there and stayed in the renovated tower which was really nice. Plus it was nice that it wasn't right in the middle of everything and we were able to get away from the craziness of the rest of the strip.

Overall it was a fantastic way to spend my big 3-0. Thanks to everyone that came and celebrated me kissing my 20s goodbye. Just don't make me laugh too hard. It makes me pee now that I'm an old lady. :)