I Didn’t Forget About You, I’m Just Boring

I know I didn’t get a blog posted last weekend.  It’s not that I forgot, I just haven’t been up to anything very exciting so I honestly didn’t know what to write about!  We spent the last weekend of January being lazy at home.  I think every weekend of February has something going on for us, so The Engineer and I just vegged out and bummed around.  I did give the house a good scrubbing, and worked on a couple little projects, but by and large I didn’t do much.  See….I told you….not very exciting

I have a couple little craft and house projects that I’m working on, but I though that instead of giving you little mini blogs about a dozen things I would just wait and do one larger post.  Much like what my Grandma used to say about hair when my sister and I were babies…..”Ya gotta wait for the good stuff!”  Likewise, I have a couple new recipes I busted out this week, but wanted to try them out before I shared them.  More waiting for you I guess! 😛

 

We did have a doggy related incident last week, I guess I could tell you about that.  My poor puppachino sliced her paw open!  Turns out that the metal frame of my couch is broken, and my little’s paw found the hole and the nasty metal.  She ended up with a pretty deep slice between her large foot pad and her ankle.  Think like right where our wrist crease is on your hand….owwies!  We spent most of Tuesday night trying to get the bleeding to stop, but she was such a brave girl about it.  It’s just in a not great spot.  We’d get the bleeding to stop and she’d get up and take a step and poof….more blood.  Pro tip…if you need to get blood out of something you can’t wash…aka my area rug…..warm salt water will do the trick every time!  It’s super science-y, but the salt basically explodes the blood cells and therefore the stain comes right out!

The pink “Stocking of Doom”…..she wasn’t at all a fan.

She spent most of Wednesday with a sock on just to keep her from licking at it all day long.  She’s been good about leaving it alone mostly, but it isn’t healing up very nicely.  It’s right where her foot bends and moves when she walks, so it’s broken open a couple times.  She doesn’t seem very bothered by it, and runs and bounces around like nothing is wrong.  She’s pretty hesitant to let us look at it, it’s hard to get a view at and we usually have to move some fur and sorta really get in there……but we’ve been checking it every night.  I’ve made the executive decision that if it doesn’t seem like it’s healing up by next week I’m going to take her into the vet.  I’m not sure there’s a ton that can be done, based on it’s placement, but for me it’s worth taking her in and just making sure that things will be alright with it.  I’ll keep you updated on that, but hopefully it just heals up on its own.

Reward for leaving the Stocking of Doom alone all day….cuddles and a couple pieces of Boom Chicka Pop!!

Life with a Limper

When you are the momma to a recovered, limpy, sore dog, there are certain things you don’t take for granted.

• The good walks you get to take.  Even if you’re busy, even if it’s hot and buggy or too cold and blowing, a good walk is always a good walk.

• Every time she jumps onto the couch by herself.

• When she can tackle stairs and not look nervous or in pain.

• Talking to other dog owners about her brace, and maybe helping other people consider non-surgerical treatment options to get their fur babies back on the right track.

• Every spin, swirl, and buck when she’s showing her toys who’s boss.

• When you neighbors ask about her leg and compliment how much better she’s looking lately.

• She she prances over whipping her rope for a game of tug-o-war.

• Not having to worry about reigning in her activity or making sure she doesn’t hurt herself some more.

• Watching like a proud momma when she comes out of her shell around other people and dogs because she can move comfortably.

• The days you forget she’s limpy because she acts just like a normal dog.

When your recovered, limpy, sore dog injures her other leg, there are certain things you hate.

• You’re new vet telling you that you’ve ruined your dogs quality of life.

• Hearing about arthritis, surgeries, and recovery time and feeling like you don’t know which is the right decision to make.

• Any vet telling you, “Just let her be and maybe she’ll get better,” or “Well, she has a history of joint issues so this will just continue to happen.”

• Knowing that as a rescue fur momma you promised to keep your pound baby safe and happy, and feeling like you’re failing.

• Watching her tripod around and struggle just to live her little puppy dog life.

• Doing the best you can, but knowing that someone will always judge your choices.

• When you’ve made huge gains and progress on getting her back into fighting shape, and now it feels derailed.

On to brace number two, and hoping my fur baby has a second speedy recovery!

 

Weekend Fix #1

Lately, I’ve been meaning to clean out the old junk from my closet. I still have shirts in there from highschool….it’s a bit uncalled for! I’m all about using things till they are worn out, but the majority of my closet is getting a bit thread bare, worn out, and just plain out of style.  Maybe it’s because I’m now totally done with school, but I just suddenly feel the overwhelming desire to declutter my life and proceed with being an adult.  Not that blowing your budget on clothes has much to do with being an adult I guess, but you have to start somewhere.

In an effort to jump start the closet revamp project, I decided to order myself a Stitch Fix box.  It just seemed like something fun and new to try.  Stitch Fix has been around quite awhile, and I know people who have used it so it didn’t seem totally hoaxy.  I will say that the online quiz they have you take was maybe slightly less than ideal.  They ask you to rate groupings of multiple outfits, but my problem was I would like parts of each group, but then there would be other pieces in the group that were just horrible.  After the quiz you can link a Pinterest board so that they can look through and see the sorta things you’re into.  My board is mostly hair and makeup, but there are some clothes on there I guess.  You can make requests for what you’d like them to send, so I said I needed some cute tops for wearing on dates and to vacation and some jewelry.  I have such mixed feelings about jewelry…..like I like it, but I never buy it, and if I buy it I never wear it.  I have the best intentions of wearing it always, I just forget or I don’t ever feel like I style them right.  Honestly, if it isn’t something I can put on and leave on for the long term, probably it’s mostly just going to hang out in the closet.

My first box arrived on Friday and I didn’t even open it.  I threw it in the car with the Pupster, and we headed down to the Main Squeeze’s for the weekend.  Saturday afternoon we finally got around to opening the box.  I got a pair of shorts, two tank tops, a romper, and a necklace.  I tried everything on and Main Squeeze helped decided what to keep and what to send back.

Necklace by Bancroft: It’s cute, but ultimately I decided not to keep it.  Again, it just comes down to styling it.  Typically, most of my jewelry is pretty plain and simple, I’m just not sure what  I would ever pair this with.

Denim Shorts by Liverpool: These were a weird length, and I wasn’t really a fan of the print at all.  She said she picked these based on outfits on my Pinterest board, but these just don’t really look like me at all.

Tank top by RD Style: It’s hard to see in the picture but its a thin tan/white stripe.  There wasn’t anything wrong with this top, but it would have needed to be taken in under the arms, and it honestly wasn’t really anything special.  If it had fit better I probably would have kept it, I just didn’t love it enough to want to put the work into making it fit better.

Tank top by Dex: This was cute, even though I generally wouldn’t have tried it because I’m not a huge fan of crotchet on clothes.  However, it was really short in the front.  There is a sheer band at the bottom, if that had been the solid cotton jersey I probably would have kept it, but it just hit me in a weird spot to be that short.

Romper by Market and Spruce: This is the only item of the Fix that I’m keeping.  It maybe needs the addition of a belt, but I like it.  It fits well and has adjustable sleeves so it can be more of a tank or have small capped sleeves.

The total price of all the items shipped to me was $254.  If I were to keep all the items I would get a 25% discount as well as a $20 credit.  That makes the total for the 5 items $170.50, which honestly doesn’t seem that bad for what I received.  However, since I’m just keeping that romper that’s $64, but I think the $20 credit is also applied to that.  If you don’t keep any item from you fix they still charge you the $20 styling fee.  The box also comes with styling idea cards and a letter from the stylist about why they chose the items for you that they did.

All in all, I would say that this isn’t a bad idea at all.  Obviously, you probably couldn’t build your whole wardrobe this way, but it seems like a fun way to add a few new pieces into the mix everyone in awhile.  I will probably order another box sometime in the future, but I’m not sure that I would have them send boxes on auto ship.  I also picked up two new dresses and a tank top from TJMaxx that I had Main Squeeze look at, but I think those are all going back also.

Sadly, it hasn’t been the best weekend at Main Squeeze’s.  The neighbor lady across the street backed into my car and smashed the back end pretty good and broke the tail light.  Then, Scout and Jeter were playing in the yard this morning, Scout jumped off the deck stairs and hurt her knee.  So now I have a crumpled car and a very limpy, tripod puppy.  Hopefully her knee will start to feel better soon.  I’m hoping she just twisted it and that she didn’t do any damage.  She tore the tendon in her other knee a few years ago and I bought her a knee brace for it.  Unfortunately, the braces are quite expensive, although it does really seem to have helped her.  Sadly, the knee she hurt this morning was her good knee. 😦  The braces don’t really seem interchangeable, although I did try that this morning.  I’ll give her a few days of rest and hopefully it will come around and be better.  If not I guess I will be calling the vet to get another brace made.