Life with the Three Crazy Dogs

The boss took me out for lunch this afternoon. We had planned to go to one of the restaurants by Lake Minnetonka. She had asked me if it’s ok to have lunch there….I was like “Yes, mam!” Anything to have a meal by one of those nice fancy restaurants that I never go to. Her reason to go to that particular restaurant that is famous for its lobsters was to get a gift certificate for our former boss.

Well, unfortunately that restaurant does not open for lunch. So she and I landed at Big Bowl in The Galleria. It was a good lunch and we chatted about everything except very little about work. The boss is good about separating work and leisure. This lunch is just for fun, nothing fancy. During these lunches we always talk about our families. Her daughter is around my age and I have met and was one of her customers when she was doing her skincare stuff. However, the girl now is looking into a sales job that she thinks will give her more flexibility working from home.  The boss’ daughter is one heck of a smart kid and a good negotiator!  I hope she will get that sales job she is interviewing for. 

The boss said we will do this again next month.  She said she wants to do this kind of lunch every month if possible which is music to my ears!  When our former boss was still with us, she and I had always wanted him to take us out for lunch, not just work and work, but that boss was just not up to it.  We think it’s a man thing – not all man though, to make it clear.  Now that our former boss is retired, just she and I, so she is doing the calls.  It’s really very nice of her and I should grateful for her and what she has done to go all gungho to keep my job.

Sometime last month, I had to buy a new frisbee for Chase. His favorite one is a Nylabone frisbee which was once belonged to Cooper. Since Chase came along and horded all of the frisbees that once were Cooper’s, Cooper just didn’t bother….as if to say, let the young-un enjoy them now. :D

However, that fav frisbee is now somewhere in the woods. I tossed it too hard and it landed somewhere in the deep shrubs. I went up and looked and searched but could not find it. I will get back to looking for it in the fall.

Anyway, I thought I had better get another frisbee for this crazy fetcher. So I bought one cheapy plastic frisbee meant for humans and what a big mistake that was. It only lasted 2 weeks or less and I had to toss it coz he was chewing it to pieces and some parts were missing which I assumed he swallowed them!!

This is what that human frisbee turned out after the Chase-abused:

Then I bought another one which the girl told me is super durable and a little more expensive, about $14.

The feel of this frisbee is totally different. It’s not flexible plastic, but it’s like rubber and heavier. It took me a while to get use to throwing it.

Letting Chase smell and feel it.

Chase lives to fetch and “abuse”! :) He really knows how to “knead” those darn frisbees whether they are plastic or flexible ones. He will keep “kneading” them till you force him to let go. The weird thing is he will only start the “kneading” thing after 8 minutes or so of fetching….after he has his “fix” of fetching! :D

Now, this is what the new blue frisbee looks like after a month and 5 days:

The middle portion of the frisbee are tear up and so when he fetches it, he will sometimes comes back looking like this:

He is definitely a comedian, makes me laugh a lot. The frisbee does not “fly” very far with its “injured” body. DB said we need to get another Nylabone frisbee which really last. The lost Nylabone frisbee we bought was in 2001, and it’s still flying albeit a lot of teeth marks. This weekend a trip to Petco will me on my calendar.

This weekend I am going to the big mall to pick up some makeup samples. DB quickly chipped in if I can do some shopping for him, to buy some clothes for him. I said why not since I’m going to Macy’s plus every single time I’m there I have to walk through the women’s and men’s even though I am not buying any. I know I need a wardrobe update for fall and winter with sweaters and long sleeve shirts/blouses, I think I will wait till next month when fall is actually here. There might be some big sales later!!  DB is not into sweaters at where he is working. He said he wants some good old T-shirts, nothing fancy, plain colors. He’s simple that way. So, yeah, this will give me a chance to shop! :)

I have mentioned earlier in some posts back I want to get back into sewing…..sewing stuff other then clothes!!!  I might have to sew some lounge pants tho since the ones I have now are hole-ly.  I started looking at bag patterns some time ago and I do bookmark those I think I like and think i can do since I’m such a pathetic sewer. 

I finished up this bag on Tuesday.  I started it on Sunday late afternoon, relying on the free light.

I finally got it all done – ironed it too, on Tuesday night, hence the low light in the above picture.  It’s a super simple bag to make.   I’m desperately trying to get rid of the fabric I hauled from garage sale, Etsy, eBay and Joann’s.  I don’t even know why I bought this fabric for this bag.  I guess I liked it when I saw innitally saw it but now, I don’t.  When I buy all these $5 or less/yard fabric, I don’t have anything in mind what to make with them.  Just buy them then figure out later.  I have quite a few fat quarters sitting in my stash plus all the the other remnants. 

Now I, again, surfing the web for patterns, mainly bags and some simple wristlets taht do not require me to sew zippers.  I sewed a wristlet once and it’s not the best…one ugly looking thing, experimenting with zippers. 

Will I sew the above ugly looking thing again or modify the pattern to make me sew it???  I don’t know, depending on my mood I guess, but I do have other wristlet patterns I saw but just don’t have the mood to get her done.  I have to say sewing is therapeutic to me….aAll is forgotten and the time goes by so quick coz I remember I can stay up till 2 am just to complete something, looked at the clock and it was way past my bedtime and it was actually almost time for me to get up!  Crazy I know but guess that’s me….the extremist.

I was looking toward the weekend.  It came and left too darn quickly.  I am thinking of working 4-10 hours which will leave me 3 days off during the weekend.  It could be a Monday or Friday.  This weekend we were cleaning and did some unpacking.  DB was tinkering around with his rust bucket truck.  I bathed the dogs and cleaned the shower stall.  After all that I was spent, didn’t want to do anything else.  Wanted to sit on the couch and waste the rest of the day away but no can do.  Have to vacuum.  Since this is not our house, I vacuum every weekend, just to keep it up with the cleaning in case the landlord/lady shows up unexpectedly.

DB actually put up the ceiling in the bedroom couple weeks ago.  Finally since he had been working weekends he had no time doing anything else in the house.  I told him the good thing about where we are at we don’t have to mow the grass.  If he had to mow the grass he would be dead meat.  Anyways, the ceiling fan in our bedroom is up.

Before:

The industrial floor fan we have been using for many years that drowns every damn noise

My electrician aka tool man at work installing the bracket for the fan

The “spectators” wondering where their dinner was since it was past 5 when we were working on this project. Missing one spectator is in the bathroom snoozing away by the air conditining.

Almost done

And all DONE. Lights and fan working perfect. It does not drown all the outside traffic noise but it sure is better than the floor fan.

The landlord brought the fan over several weeks ago. I thought he was going to set it up but DB said since we were the ones who requested for a ceiling fan, they bought it at Menards and delivered it for us. So DB said we should be putting it up ourselves.  But guess what???  The landlord and lady came over couple weeks ago impromptu-ly due to the water leakage problem.  They saw the  fan in the room up and apologize profusely saying they will pay us for installing it and also the pantry selves.  They said they should be doing it as landlords.    Thank the good Lord for such great landlord/lady.

Yesterday, Sunday I baked a cake.  I had too much time after I got done cooking for the week.  I made a banana upside down cake, recipe from Gertrude.  No pictures coz when I turned the cake over, it didn’t come off the pan, I had to bang the bottom of the pan, the cake broke loose and broke it did – into a few big pieces and also the coloring was kinda pale compare to Gert’s even though I used brown sugar!  Totally not worthy of pictures!!!  I really have to keep some dark brown sugar in the pantry.  But nevertheless, the cake tasted damn good.  Half the cake gone between the two of us.   Will have to try my sister’s choc mudd cake this weekend.