Our Memorial Day Weekend

Wow! I started this post a while back and forgot about it. Geeze. I'm a bad blogger these days. I've been more consumed with reading vampire books, watching season 1 of Tru Blood on DVD, not to mention watching the New Moon Trailer over and over and over again..... I'm officially obsessed and officially a loser.

Anyway, We had a great, relaxing Memorial Day weekend. Friday I had a wedding to work, but afterwards we went for a quick trip to Sedona. Our favorite getaway spot here in AZ. It really is a "hidden gem".

We didn't get in until 9pm, checked in to the hotel and got settled. It was raining quite a bit, so we took the dogs out to potty then let them calm down for a bit. Once they looked like they were pooped from the ride up and were done being curious, we put them in their crates and went out to find some late dinner. Unfortunately, by this time it was about 10 till 10:00. We got to a restaurant, but they closed at 10:00, and even though it was 9:50, we didn't want to be that guy. You know, the one that shows up right before a restaurant is about to close, and keeps everyone there late. That's rude, IMO. So we searched for a short period of time for a restaurant that was open later, but came up empty handed. So we decided to just grab some pizza from Dominos and a couple 6 packs of beer and went back to the hotel. So Friday night was kind of a bust, since we got there late and it was raining.

Saturday morning we got up, and thankfully the rain let up, and the sun came out a bit. We went and got some breakfast then headed out to find a good hiking spot. We stopped at a tourist spot to get a "Red Rock Pass" (the pass you need to park and hike, basically), some good info on a non-touristy place to hike, and a map. We drove up passed Slide Rock about 5 miles, and found our spot. It was less of a hike, and more of a "brisk walk" as the tourist place lady called it.

So here we go with the pics...



Gizzy is my little adventure dog. He loves the outdoors and creeks especially! He jumps from rock to rock, splashes around in the creek and just has a good ol time.



This is when he found a deeper part and straight up jumped off that big rock into the creek. Too funny!



On our way back we found this tree that was COVERED in Lady Bugs. I have never seen anything like this before.




Lily isn't as impressed with the creek as Gizmo.

The Two Items I've Wanted Really Bad

I finally got! A rug and a new chandelier! FINALLY! I've been dying for these two things since we moved in, especially the chandelier. I am so happy to get rid of that horrible 70's fixture that was there before. I feel like these spaces are almost complete now. We still need to remove the popcorn ceilings and replace the ceiling fan.

S.I.S.T.E.R.S

This weekend my sister and I finally got tattooed together. We've been wanting to do this for a while, but haven't gotten around to it. She originally wanted the chinese symbols for sister, and I wasn't feeling that, so I decided we'll do a sparrow, and she was ok with that. So, we had Husband's friend Justin do it for us. Husband recently did some work over at Justin's house, so instead of paying him with money, he's paying in him with tattoos.

It's not the best picture, since it's taken with my phone and also, it's hard to take a picture of your own wrist.


Anyway, Justin is an amazing artist and a really cool guy. He works at Golden Tooth Tattoo (link to Justin's myspace page), so if you're in need of a new tattoo, he'll hook you up.

Lily Loves The Sprinklers

Miss Lily LOVES the sprinklers. Every morning when I go out and turn them on, this is what she does...


"Oh hey! What's that?!"


"NOM NOM NOM! Bite the water!"


"WEEEE! OMG I LOVE SPRINKLERS!!"


"OMG Mommy! Did you see that?! These things came out of the ground and got me all wet! It was fun! Will you throw my toy in the middle of the yard? I like playing fetch in the sprinklers!"



...and repeat. This is a daily thing now. Oh and please ignore the status of my backyard. Husband has decided to tear it apart. His OCD is getting the best of him. He is removing the rock and brick. He also removed the tree. He absolutely hates the fact that grass grows through the rock and wants it all grass back here. Whatev.

Vintage Finds

Long time, no blog. First the doggies got sick (Gizzy did), then Lily got spayed, and then I've been sick ever since. I had a slight cold. A bit of a sore throat and a cough, but otherwise felt fine. But then it lasted too long and started getting worse. After two weeks of it, and one night of no sleep due to the cough that wouldn't stop, I headed out to see the doctor. Turns out I had/have bronchitis... Fun times. So I got a bunch of meds and am feeling a little better, but not 100%. I actually am starting to cough more again, fanfeckingtastic! So I have another doctors appointment set for Monday morning. Story of my life. With this immune system, I'll be lucky if I don't get the Swine Flu!

Anyhoo, With all the awesome thrift shopping I've been seeing on blogs lately, has made me want to look. I started going to Goodwill quite often, but not finding anything worth buying. A couple weeks ago I went by my favorite vintage shop, Go Kat Go. This store is so beyond awesome! They have a mixture of punk rock knick knacks, vintage finds and furniture, clothing made locally, etc etc. I walked into the store and was greeted by a doggy! And then, in a bucket of patches, was lying a cute little kitty! I wish I would've taken a picture of that, because it was really unexpected and super cute. Anyway, I browsed the store and ended up leaving with two items. One was a vintage serving platter.



Great find and it was $10. Didn't even have a scratch on it!

I used it for my entry table. I put some candles in it, and voi la!





I also picked up these coasters. Since Lily chewed up all our cork coasters, and the glass coasters kinda suck for coaster purposes, I knew Husband would appreciate this. And they were only a couple buckaroos!




And finally, after several attempts to find something worth while at Goodwill (and my last attempt), I found this chandelier. I really wish I had a before picture. Of course, I forgot to take a before picture. Well, that's not entirely true. I did take a before picture. With my camera phone, but it was horrible cause I was trying to hold it up, and take a photo at the same time, and this is heavy! So it turned out like crap and I didn't hang it until I was almost done painting it (when Husband got home and found a place for me to hang it). Anyway before painting it, it was just brass. Like a brassy gold color. It was ugly.

It's not done yet though! I did paint it with a glossy black spray paint. So here it is so far... (Please excuse my messy messy garage in the background).






I bought some small red lamp shades to go with it, but the lightbulbs I bought were the wrong size, so I need to take them back. I was originally going to paint this red for my grey, red and white guest bedroom, but I decided first, I'm going to play it safe and paint it black, incase the red is too much. For now, I think I may try to talk Husband into hanging it in the dining room, since it seems as though a new chandelier is not in our immediate future. :( And I don't know how much longer I can stand to look at that fugly thing hanging there now.

So there you have it! My first vintage/thrift finds! How do you think I did?

Bot-tled Wah-ter

I LOVE me some Chelsea Handler. She is probably the funniest woman alive. I watch Chelsea Lately every night. My favorite is when she does little skits. She did this one sometime last week and I was laughing so hard i was choking (literally, I have been battling Bronchitis).

Here's a "lost episode" of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Loves it!



P.S. I love Heather "Long Boobs" McDonald too.

What A Week!

It's been a crazy week here in our household. First, on Monday night/Tuesday morning Gizmo got sick. Here's the story....

I noticed that he woke me up to potty about 3 or 4 times Monday night. Did really think too much of it, except it was annoying the crap out of me that he kept waking me up from my beauty sleep. Then a little while after I woke up in the morning (after sleeping in a bit due to being woken up so many times), I let him out again. Then he just sat there in the yard and wouldn't come, so I tried bribing him with a treat. Still, he wouldn't come, or wouldn't eat the treat either. Now I'm starting to get a little suspicious. While I'm waiting for him to come in I notice that the door to the laundry room is open a bit, so I look in there and sure enough there is poop and pee. This is his "secret" poo and pee spot when he's being bad, or didn't wake me up... I notice that some of the pee spots look brown. This concerns me. I look closer and see that this is not pee, but poop. Diarrhea to be exact.Then he finally comes back in, so I take a gander at his little butt and to no surprise, it is covered in diarrhea. I get a washcloth and start cleaning it off. He's shivering. Just laying there looking miserable and shaking. I tried to get him to eat or drink something and he refused. This is the point I really start getting concerned. So I called the vet and they say to bring him in.

We took him in. They said it sounds like he has Giardia, which is something they've seen a lot of lately (By the way, if you've never heard of Giardia like I hadn't, click the link). They asked me if he has been to the dog park and if he had drank the water out of the shared bowl. I said yes. We went to the dog park Sunday, and he did drink out of the bowl, which is totally weird for him, because he always refuses to drink after those slobbery dogs...

Anyway, poor Gizzy got poked and prodded. They tried getting a stool sample, which he did not like at all, took blood and shaved his butt so he doesn't make such a mess. We left the vet with 6 cans of perscription dog food, medicine, probiotics, and a little thingy to get a good stool sample. Of course, as soon as we got home he took a dump and I had to scoop it into this tube with a spork type tool. I immediately turn back around and drive to the vet.



The lab results came back the next day negative for Giardia, and he's completely fine now, so who knows... He must have eaten something or just had a bug? I'm watching him closely to make sure, but he's back to his normal butthead self. So $200 and 3 hours later, turns out he's okay. I guess it's good to know. I don't like taking chances.

Then yesterday, Miss Lily Butt had her spay appointment. We were going to reschedule after spending money on Gizzy's vet appointment, but decided just to bite the bullet and take her. Now that Husband is working in Prescott Valley we need to get it done. He had already taken the time off work to pick her up, so we just got it over with.

Yesterday she was droopy from the anesthesia. Today, she's acting like she never had surgery. Just back to her crazy self! I'm having a hard time getting her to relax. I don't mind if she's walking around, but she's jumping on and off the couch and bed before we can stop her. Not good. So far so good though. Her belly is fine. Except when she gets the E-collar on her head. She goes Dog-a-tonic. She doesn't know what to do or how to move. It's funny. I left for my hair appointment, realized about halfway there that I forgot my wallet, so came home and she was still standing in the same spot... Like this:




First I laughed, then I felt bad and took it off. She really doesn't need it. She hasn't tried licking at all.

So yeah, that was my fun and exciting week!