Bathroom Humor

I've discovered that you can tell a lot about a person by how he or she reacts to a dog's biological functions.  

Sometimes you have company over for dinner and, within thirty seconds of entering your home, the company tries to rub your puppy's belly and gets peed on.  

Sometimes you bring your dog to Home Depot because you're supposed to socialize him.  You even make sure to let him outside before hopping in the car.  But then he poops all over the floor of the garden section.  Then pees while you're checking out.  

Thankfully, in both instances, people could not have been nicer.  I was especially mortified at Home Depot and offered to clean it up, but they assured me that it wasn't the first time and won't be the last.  They even stopped to pet Murph before cleaning up his mess.  

Did I mention he was walking while pooping?  So it made a long trail of poop across the aisle?  

Okay, good.  

On the bright side, Murphy is getting smarter and braver every day.  This morning he took a two mile walk with me!  We passed a few cars, some yards with barking dogs and even a person walking the most well-trained pit bulls ever.  He hardly blinked.  

Tonight, we tried to walk again.  Maybe it was too much after the embarrassment of the Home Depot incident, but he was terrified of everything.  Every.  Thing.  

A car?  Obviously a giant steel death trap.

Men of all ages and races?  Each of them out to get him, naturally. 

A small child walking next to her stroller?  Oh heavens!  She's clearly a cold-blooded killer!! 

I think Murphy is a morning dog.  I have some transitioning to do. 

I'll leave you with this.  My parents were visiting this weekend, and Padre bought Murphy his first pool.  Murphy has no idea what to make of the creatures in the bottom.  

Love, 

Murphy & Me

Murphy Has A Mohawk!

Yesterday marked two weeks since I brought Murphy home.  It's crazy how much I've learned about him in that time.  Here's what a typical day looks like with him. 

First thing in the morning, I let him out of his crate and we go outside.  He is definitely conditioned to receiving treats after going to the bathroom.  Now, he'll do his thing and come immediately to sit at my feet.  When we go back inside, I make a beeline for the kitchen to start the coffee.  Murph ignores his food completely, knowing he's about to get the teeth-cleaning bone/stick thing I give him every morning.  This morning I almost forgot about that until I realized that he wasn't eating anything.  The first one I gave him lasted about 10 minutes.  Now, he devours one in under 3.  

 

Murphy Man is HYPER in the morning, so next on his agenda is to play with every single one of his toys and jump up as much as possible.  This is especially exciting for him considering all of the fun toys he's gotten!  Last weekend, he got his first package from his friend Abby.  She even wrote him a note. 

Murphy was SO excited about his new treats.  He got a super noisy squeaky squirrel.  (It's giving Libby's toy steep competition for favorite.)

 

He also got a cool ball called the Hole-y Roller.  It's one of his favorite things to chew on right now. 

 

Who can forget the awesome new collar for when he gets a little bigger?  I finally had to hide it from him because he couldn't stop grabbing it from the table.  

 Murph also loves the tasty treats that Abby sent.  I'm saving a lot of them for puppy preschool with him in the morning.  

Thank you Abby (and Poppy and Goola!!!) 

Sadly, after morning playtime, I have to go to work.  Murph spends a few hours in his exercise pen, and then we repeat the morning agenda when I get home.  

Inevitably, I will need to go to the bathroom at some point as well.  I keep the door closed so Murphy doesn't chew up the rug in there.  Strangest thing, though: whenever I am in there, he waits outside the door patiently, tail wagging, for me to come back out. 

Murphy is extremely affectionate and loves to cuddle.  This is very strange for me to get used to.  He often jumps over to invite me to play on the floor with him. 

 This constant attention-seeking can be fun when it's just us, but I also tutor at home.  The other day I was tutoring for the first time with Murphy in the house and he was quite distracting.  After consulting with a friend, I made a trip to the pet store to stock up on things to entertain him while I work.

 Libby said her parents call the bone on the left the "company" bone, as it quiets their puppies when company is over.  Friends, it worked like a charm.  Murph was silent for a solid 35 minutes.  He looooooves it!

He also loves playing outside when it's not too hot.  

 He's a total wuss, though.  (Wuss? Puppy? Same thing.)  Whenever the neighbor dogs bark, he runs straight for the door to go inside or over to me for protection. 

So what's with the mohawk?  Well, I noticed when petting him the other day that he has this wide strip of fur down his back that is coarser and slightly darker than the rest of his fur.  I jokingly told a friend that my puppy has a mohawk, and he asked if Murphy has any Rhodesian Ridgeback mix in him.  I know there is testing you can do to find out what breeds a dog is made of, but it's been far more fun to tell my mom and have her send me dozens of pictures of Ridgeback puppies, comparing Murphy to each of them. 

Can you see the stripe? 

It's hard to get him to sit still long enough for a picture, but I managed to snap these two.  

I honestly hadn't heard of Rhodesian Ridgebacks until a few weeks ago, but it looks like they are really good dogs.  They're also BIG.  Murph was expected to be 45-50 pounds at adult size.  It'll be interesting to see how accurate that prediction turns out to be.  

That's all for now, folks.  I hope everyone had a great week!

Love, 

Murphy & Me

Zoodles

"What is a zoodle?" you must be asking yourself. 

Cute drawings of the zoo? Some new poodle crossbreed? 

Nope.  

Zucchini noodles.  

At least, some people are calling them that.  I am not one of those people.  

That being said, I will eat them.  They're delicious.  Well, delicious in that they're kind of flavorless, like regular pasta.  If you don't cook them, they have almost the same consistency of the perfect al dente noodles.  

Why am I so excited about these?  Well, I coughed up thirty bucks to buy a spiral slicer.  

Ya'll.  It.  Is.  The.  Greatest.  Thing.  Ever.  

Before this, the best I could do with zucchini was try to peel it and make really wide, thin noodle-y strips.  Don't get me wrong.  They were tasty.  But check this out: 

 

This is what the contraption looks like.  You chop off both ends of the zucchini (or whatever vegetable you choose) and attach one end to the spicy prongs on the right side, and press the other end to the blade on the left.  Then you just turn that handle.  It took under three minutes, and I had this:

 It's hard to see scale in the picture, but that's about four cups of "noodles."  There are three different blades you can use too.  The first one I tried gave me the wider, curly noodles in the bottom left corner of the picture.  The second one gave me the rest of the pile.  (I still need to try the third one.)

 This was all that was leftover - hardly any waste.

And aside from running a sponge over the rest, this is the only part you really need to clean.  Note: clean this immediately.  It's really easy while still fresh.  Trying to clean thin dried zucchini peels out of the nooks and crannies of tiny blades is not nearly as simple as you might expect.

I'm obsessed with this thing. 

I was so excited about my healthy dinner and the fact that it was under 90 degrees yesterday with no humidity or rain that Murph and I brought our dinner to the patio to enjoy our meals al fresco.  

Some other dogs in the neighborhood started barking after that, and Murph got a little anxious, so he curled up in my lap.  I used this opportunity to grab a few closeups of him.  

 

(mid yawn)

 He's also gotten a little more used to his leash.  I still am not supposed to take him out around other dogs for a few more weeks until he's had all his shots, but we've now taken five full laps around the back yard on the leash without too much freaking out.

 He does love to play.  Libby came down last week to visit and surprised him with a few toys.  The squeaky one is by far his favorite.  As I whined about his lack of immediate housetraining, she explained that that's what she loves most about other people's pets - giving them back.  "If the puppy were to go to college, I would be the aunt that buys him a big dorm fridge." She then questioned whether or not he's Ivy League material. 

I think sleeping is still his favorite activity, though.  I took this picture of him approximately thirty-two seconds ago. 

I truly hope that this nap thing isn't a phase he grows out of.  

Tomorrow I'm going to check out a place where I might start taking Murphy for training.  If it works out, I'm sure there will be lots of anecdotes to share.  Have a great weekend!

Love, 

Murphy & Me

Murphy's Here!

 

Have you guys stocked up for the impending apocalypse yet?  Hopefully you have plenty of distilled water, flashlights with many batteries to spare, canned food to last you for an extended duration of time, etc.  I'm not really sure how else to explain it other than the fact that it must be a sign of the world ending soon:  I am now a dog owner.  

Even one of my very best friends said she wouldn't believe it until I brought him home.  She said I might have photo-shopped him into our first picture together as a family.  Well, it happened.  I officially brought Murphy home to live here on Thursday night.  My pick-up time for Murph kept alternating between Thursday night and Friday morning.  I thought I had plenty of time and had adequately prepared everything for him.  When I got the message that he was ready early on Thursday, I went into a major panic.  What did I get myself into?????  Not being the parent of a human, I can only imagine that this is similar to the panic that people experience before having a child.  Seventy-two hours later, I still feel completely lost about everything.  I've been keeping a mental list of all the things I wanted to write about the experience.  As a whole, it's been more a learning experience than anything else, so I'm breaking my thoughts into three distinct categories. 


(This is Murphy and his nine brothers at three weeks old)

Things I've Learned About Myself

1.  I have a heart.   I know, I know.  But for most of my life, any time I've confessed to people that I'm not much of an animal person (to put it mildly), I've received dumbfounded looks and accusations of being heartless.  Murphy spent most of the day at the vet on Thursday before I picked him up, so he was pretty worn out by the time he got to my house.  I literally sat on my kitchen floor and watched him struggle to stay awake until he ultimately passed out underneath a chair.  Who am I?  Watching an animal sleep?  

It happened.

2.  I'm incredibly selfish.  I want things to be as convenient as possible for me all of the time.  When I'm trying to train him, I expect Murphy to give me his full attention.  I expect him to understand things immediately, and I become annoyed when I have to repeat myself.

3.  I'm primarily a verbal communicator.  I've been setting an alarm for every hour during the day to take Murphy outside as he becomes housetrained.  I would have zero problem (as long as it's convenient for me - see point 2 above) taking him out in between those times... if I knew he needed to go out.  If he would bark or cry at the door to communicate to me that he needs a pee break, I'd give him a pee break.  It hasn't worked out that way so far.  Instead, he's much more a body language communicator.  We're going to have to work on these language barriers.

Things I've Learned That Murphy & I have In Common

1.  We both enjoy naps.  I can fall asleep almost anywhere.  If my brain is not actively engaged in something, it is quite difficult to prevent me from nodding off.  Murphy, too, is not limited by time of day, audience, or environment when it comes to finding a suitable nap time.

2.  We both like to stay inside on triple digit days.  It's July in Texas.  Things are bound to get hot.  Yesterday, it was like pulling teeth just to have him follow me outside.  As soon as he does his business, he runs back to the door to return to the air conditioning.

3.  We both go to the bathroom somewhere around 47 times per day.  If only he could channel those times to correlate with the 47 times per day that I bring him outside.

Things I've Learned About Murphy

1.  His teeth are going to fall out!!  Okay, that's true of all dogs, but I didn't know it until yesterday!  Those sharp puppy teeth fall out just like baby teeth to be replaced with blunter adult teeth.  This makes complete sense.  Having never owned a dog before, though, I never gave it any thought.  Thank goodness my friend casually mentioned it because I would have gone BONKERS in a few months and thought I broke my dog had I not known it was supposed to happen.

2.  He's sophisticated.  I started putting music on to help him calm down when I put him in his crate.  The first few times, I just turned on the radio and played the country station that I always listen to.  It wasn't helping him at all.  I switched to classical music, and he calmed down immediately.

3.  He's smart.  He already knows the "sit" command.  I have a witness to prove it!  He can also shake hands already, too, but we're still working on not ending the handshake by biting the human involved. 

  
   

(Alright, so I typed all of that up last night, but it wouldn't let me load any pictures so I went to bed.  The internet is hating me right now, and I still can't get the pictures up, so I'm posting this without any visuals of my super cute puppy.  I will, however, share with you the most recent lesson I learned:  If you're ever trying to get your puppy to settle down and go to sleep early so you, too, can go to sleep early in order to wake up before the sun rises to play with him before work... well that would not be the right time to try putting him on a leash for the first time.  Especially not if it's storming, dark, and you're trying to juggle waste bags, his treats, an umbrella, and a 5 lb flashlight.  He will not take well to this new restriction.  He will in fact go bonkers and wrap the leash around everything in  your backyard, knocking down the tomato cage in the process and then attacking the tomato cage in an erratic act of self defense.  Consider this a friendly little PSA for all you future puppy owners.  I hope this helps.)  Yay for internet cooperation!  Enjoy the pics!


Love,

Murphy & Me

 

Out of Breath

You know those times when you really need to cry, but you just can't?  When all kinds of stress and exhaustion have built up and you're just one broken nail or mismatched sock or stolen cookie from sobbing uncontrollably for days... yet you just can't summon up a tear?  My go to in that situation used to be watching a sad movie.  Beaches.  My Girl.  

I have a new suggestion for ya'll.  

Next time you find yourself in that situation, just move your couch back a few inches.  What you find will cause instantaneous crying. 

Before I explain why I was moving furniture on a Tuesday night, let's back up.  After a week and a half of delicious (and disastrous) vacation eating, madre has decided that our family is now in super-fit mode.  I woke up early (6am - on vacation - that happened) to go to the grocery store, then went to the gym, then took a nap to recover from waking up early.  After the nap, I cooked forever to prepare for super-fit week #1.

After cooking, I sanded all the cabinets and drawers that I'm staining.  (Sidenote: this might be a phenomenal failure.  I am quite familiar with how to do the stain, as I used it for most of my dining room.  That was on actual wood though.  It turns out my never-updated built-in-1984 guest bathroom contractors decided to skimp on the cabinets.  Rather than install builders-grade oak, they installed builder-grade oak veneers on top of particle board.  Even I know that this is a problem in a bathroom.  You know, where there's a bath.  And water.  And steam.  So, who knows what the end result will be.  If it's a flop, I will have only spent $75 bucks and approximately 700 hours of labor.  Something needed to be done about them.  If it looks more horrific than it does now, I'll just have to channel more of my energy going forward into finding a rich husband to pay for a professional bathroom redo.)

Whew.  So, once the cabinets were prepped and food was mostly finished, I had to begin the puppy prepping.  Oh yes.  For my new puppy, who will be joining me in my fortress later this week.  I don't have a ton to do, but I was highly encouraged by multiple sources to temporarily remove the area rug from my living room.  Hence, moving the furniture off of the rug.  What I found was disgusting.  Seriously.  How can one person with no children or pets (yet) lead to so much mess in a single year?  It's a good thing I already put down a deposit for the dog - I might have rethought that decision otherwise.  Just kidding!

As it turns out, area rugs are heavy.  Especially 10' x 12' ones.  (That's a guess.  I don't really remember how big it is.)  The original plan was to stash it in the garage.  My garage is kind of a mess right now.  (Remember that whole cabinet project?  It's in the garage.)  I didn't want to have to move more stuff around, especially in the sweltering heat, so I did the next most logical thing:  I moved it upstairs.  I hauled, pushed, pulled, and ultimately willed the rug into the guest room upstairs... without taking out the banister or scratching any paint!  

This means I don't have to work out tomorrow, right? 

Now, let me introduce the catalyst for the rug adventure.  Meet Murphy!

 That was when I first met him.  (Let's not talk about my cool hair.)  

He's a German Shepherd mix, born to a litter of NINE BOYS.  Holy.  Moly. 

He was about six weeks old there. 

Here he is a few days ago, tired of the Texas heat.

 

 I don't know how he will handle not having to fight his brothers for food.

Here's the latest picture, taken earlier today.  I have really mixed feelings about removing him from his family, but he already has a few fans who are dying to meet him.  Look how big he's getting!

Love, 

Murphy & Me

How Does My Garden Grow?

Well folks, I garden. 

Ish. 

I'm trying.

Last year when I moved into my house, I had some flower beds in the front yard.  Left untouched, I mean truly - I didn't once water, rake, or even offer a long glance in their direction, this spring began with some overgrown shrubs on one side and a lone lantana plant on the other.  When my parents were coming down for Easter, I asked them about possibly putting in some roses or other plants.  "So mom, what exactly does that involve?" 

Ha.  I had no idea what that involved.  After approximately 17 minutes of explanation, I was convinced that I had zero interest in putting in my own sweat and tears (because there would definitely have been tears).  Thankfully, this was around the same time that I had hired a 19 year old - the older brother of one of my tutoring clients - to mow my lawn.  I quickly learned that the kid LOVES landscaping.  He knew what he was talking about and was delighted to make some money, but he truly actually enjoys it.  Over one long weekend, he transformed my front yard from being the blight of the block to something actually pleasant to look at!  I do have lots of before and after pictures of this transformation.  That being said, madre raised me to be super paranoid, so I'm not inclined to post pictures of the front of my house that can identify me for all of the interwebs to find.  Ask me in person, and I'll be delighted to show you.  

This did spur me on to want to do more with my backyard, though.  

I have attempted to keep plants alive in the past, with varying levels of failure.  It took me a whole year to kill a mother-in-law plant.  From what I've gathered, it's quite a feat.  In trying to keep the front yard plants alive, I've been reminded of an unfortunate truth: mosquitoes love me.  Not in the way that we all enjoy savoring a nice steak on a special occasion.  Mosquitoes flock to me and devour my blood like tween girls devour chocolate and cookie dough at a slumber party.  Enter pinterest: apparently there are gardeners who share my dilemma and were pleased as punch to share which plants send these blood-sucking monsters running (flying?) for the hills.  

I had purchased a few whisky barrels to plant things in my backyard, so I armed myself with a list of these mosquito-repellant plants and headed off to Home Depot.  Why yes, it turns out I spend a lot of time - and money - at Home Depot.  They should really sponsor this blog.  If not, I might need to start directly depositing a portion of my paycheck there each month.  Over several trips and many hours spent outside, here is the current set up. 

Barrel # 1 - yellow and orange bell peppers

I bought the plants already like this (as opposed to starting them from seed).  I have no idea how long it takes actual peppers to sprout, but if it works I will be beyond excited.  I could eat bell peppers with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Oh, how I love them. 

 

 

Barrel # 2 - Angelonia

I had never seen this plant before, but they look a little like purple and white bluebonnets.  They were all over the internets as being fairly drought-tolerant and low maintenance.  The one in the very front is having a difficult time, but I'm trying to nurse it back to life.  I also left some room to plant something else in the middle of the barrel, but I haven't decided what just yet. 

 

Barrel # 3 - rosemary in the center, with sage on the side

I tried to leave some room in this guy too, for planting more when I get around to it.  Supposedly putting dried sage in a campfire keeps mosquitoes away, so I decided to grow some.  Watering this barrel is my favorite part of taking care of these plants because it smells amazing.

Barrel # 4 - some more angelonia, with some shrub in the center

What can I say?  It looked okay, so I grabbed two of them and put them in the cart.  No idea what it's called.

 I also potted some basil.  Word on the street is that basil is the easiest herb to take care of because you can tell by looking at it exactly what it needs.  Mine look pretty puny, and I guess we aren't communicating on the same wavelength.  I'll research some more.  In the meantime, though, I made some Berry Basil Tea a few weeks ago when I had friends over for dinner.  It is possibly the most Martha Stewart I've ever felt in my life - going outside to gather basil leaves to make my very own iced tea from scratch.  I was called out for heating up store-made frozen burger patties, so I had to compensate somehow.  

  The reviews on the tea were mixed.  The smell of the basil when you're right about to sip the tea does not correlate well to the flavor of the tea, so it is rather confusing for the tastebuds.  I happened to enjoy it.  I'm lazy, so this was semi labor intensive as far as recipes go.  To do over, I'd double it and get a full gallon of tea from one batch. 

"Cascading geranium" was one of the so-called mosquito repelling plants.  I have no idea if this is the same as regular geranium.  I saw no hanging geranium for sale.  I determined to make this geranium cascade.  

(Lesson learned while hanging the basket: if you are one inch shy of reaching the hook whilst standing on your tippy-toes, it will take less effort to grab a stool or chair to stand on and hang it properly than to clean up the mess made while attempting to just jump and pray that you can reach the hook, after which you will need to grab a stool or chair to stand on anyway.)

This is the last plant out back right now.  I think it's called something yucca.  It looked cool. 

 

My mom gave me those cute pots for Christmas, along with one medium sized green one to complete the set.  The green one had broken during shipping, so I pulled a Wonderlynn and decided to use the pieces to make a mosaic-tiled pot.   (The grout is still drying, and I'll need to clean it up a little.)

Lastly, I'm making my umpteenth attempt at composting.  This was another DIY bin I found online.  It's propped up on the bucket because I learned overnight that if you leave a bucket with food scraps on your porch, ants will find it.  Thank goodness you readers have me to share such wisdom with you.

 I also finally got around to fixing my fence.  It had looked like this for awhile now: 

 I went out yesterday armed with my drill and a box of wood screws and within two minutes I had this:

 

Yes.  I see the nail and screw still sticking out.  For whatever reason, they wouldn't go through the crossbar all the way.  (Is it called a crossbar?  I have no idea.  It sounds right?)  But it's an improvement nonetheless.  I am just nailing this whole adulthood thing. (Pun intended.)

The last thing I'll add is the massive success I experienced last night at the fire pit.  My parents also gave me a fire pit for my back patio as an early Christmas present.  I've spent several evenings out there embarrassed by my inability to keep anything other than cardboard and lighter fluid aflame.  

I had some friends over to watch The Sandlot and make s'mores afterward.  (That movie is easily in my top 5 favorites.  Without question.)

Thanks to the teepee method of fire building I found online and the secret ingredient fire-starter I am now aware of, I finally sustained a fire!  Friends, this was truly a proud moment.  Prior to last night, I felt great shame at my inability to carry on the pyromaniacal legacy of my family.  That shame is now gone.

Oh, and I haven't gotten a single mosquito bite on the patio in days!  (I also put up some sweet citronella tiki torches and flame pots to create a citronella force field around the patio.  It's fabulous.)

Alright, any guesses as to the secret fire starter ingredient?  Twelve gold stars to whoever can get it first (parents excluded, as I already told them)!

Love, 

Murphy & Me