Catch-up

It's been absolutely ages since I last posted, and not because there hasn't been anything to write about, I just haven't gotten around to blogging!

Well my friend Taj visited for 10 days, which was lovely. We had a really good time - we went to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, then we did lots of stuff around Phoenix...

• 4 malls (she wanted to do lots of shopping)
• Phoenix Zoo
• Massages (I still had my gift card from my hubby for a 1.5 hour massage)
• Went to sit by the pool at Onel's apartment complex
• Yappy Hour at a really nice hotel/resort (for the Humane Society)

Taj left on May 2nd and on May 3rd my Mum and stepdad arrived, so there wasn't much of a gap between visitors! They stayed in a gorgeous resort, though, so hubby and I had the house back to ourselves. With my Mum and Stepdad we did the following:

• 1 mall
• Phoenix Zoo
• Spent a day at their resort in and by the pools
• Bearizona, a drive-through wildlife park in Williams, AZ
• The Grand Canyon
• Sedona

They also went horseback riding in the desert, which they really enjoyed. As you can see, we had a busy time with all our visitors!

I have to say, once everyone had left, it felt really weird. I think because since I moved here at the beginning of September 2010, I'd known they were coming in May and it was something to look forward to. Once they'd left, I just felt kinda empty. We don't have any other visitors lined up at the moment, although my friend Tamzin and her family are hoping to visit us next Easter when we'll hopefully have our new house. That's not set in stone though, of course.

I was feeling a bit down for a couple of weeks after my Mum left, but I'm back to normal now - whatever normal is, anyway!

We had a big problem with the pugs a few weeks back, their fighting suddenly escalated and it got to the point where we had to do something to sort them out. It was either get a dog trainer involved, or we'd have to consider taking Gracie back to pug rescue. The latter was something that filled us with dread, because we really have bonded with her (we've had her since early February) and we'd hate to have to part with her now. Also I'd feel so guilty because she'd have to go through the whole thing again - she was pretty messed up when she came to us, obviously confused because her original family had surrendered her, and I don't want her to go through that again! Besides, she's not really the 'problem' dog. Anyways, to cut a long story short, pug rescue recommended a dog trainer so we've hired her. So far we've had our initial consultation (which ended up being about 4 hours!) and one of our six training sessions (they're supposed to be 1.5 hours a time, and again she was here for close to 4 hours - just as well it's a fixed fee, and not hourly rates!). We still have issues with them but we're better able to handle them now. Hopefully by the end of the 6 weeks things will be a lot better. If not, well the fee covers any training the dogs might need for the rest of their lives, so we'll just have to have the trainer back again!

We've been told by our realtor that we should be hearing something about the new house in the next couple of weeks hopefully, so fingers crossed we'll get it! It's been over 2 months since we made the offer and because it's a 'short sale' these things take forever to go through - they haven't even accepted our offer yet! I just hope they don't try to raise the price or mess us around some other way...

Our pug Suzie has to go to the vet this afternoon, I think she has a stye on her eye, poor thing! Hopefully it won't need anything too much to treat it. I'm thinking maybe some ointment or drops or something. Also, hopefully it won't be too expensive either - last time she was at the vet (for a UTI) it was $132 (about £80). Actually now that I think about it, considering her 2 weeks of antibiotics and the testing etc, that's not too bad is it?!

I'm on a diet at the moment - I started on Monday May 30th so today is day 11. I finally bought some scales last Tuesday so Tuesday is now "weigh day". I weighed way too much last Tuesday... I don't really want to say here, but I don't think anyone reads this so I might as well! I was 209.4 pounds. I'm 5ft 8" and I have a big frame anyway, but even so, it's very bad! So I weighed myself again this Tuesday and I'd lost 1.5 pounds, I'm now 207.9 pounds. I was kinda disappointed because I was hoping to lose 3 pounds a week, but I think if you want to keep the weight off you're supposed to only lose 1 to 2 pounds a week so if that's the case, I'm right on track.

I've been very good and haven't broken my diet at all, so it's just a case of keeping up with it really. Ideally I'd love to lose 40 pounds but I definitely need to lose at least 30 I think. I'll feel so much better if I do it, and look much better too. If I keep losing 1.5 pounds per week, that'll be 6 pounds in a month, 12 pounds in 2 months, 18 pounds in 3 months... It'll take me 5 months (well 20 weeks, anyway) to lose 30 pounds... Yikes! That all depends on whether something else gets in the way of my diet, though. I can't say too much right now but we may have some rather exciting news in the not-too distant future! :-)

Rain!

It's a wet, grey day in Phoenix! It's raining on and off, and it's supposed to continue that way for the rest of the day and into this evening. It actually makes a nice change, really. Most of the time it's warm and sunny with blue skies, so a grey drizzly day is quite refreshing!

We had a lie-in this morning, Suzie woke us up at 6.30 so we put the dogs on the bed with us and they eventually went back to sleep. We got up at 9.40 - positively late for us, even for a weekend! It was nice, but I do feel a bit groggy now because of waking up and going back to sleep a couple of times. Oh well! It's not as though we're doing much today. I think it might be a movie day - there seem to be a few decent-ish movies on TV, so that'll keep me occupied for a little while!

I need to go to trusty old Target at some point, poor Gracie has allergies at the moment and she's scratching lots. She's on Benadryl 3 times a day (luckily we got the Target own version which is exactly the same, only $4 for 100 so that's great!). Anyway, we're also having to put shirts on her to stop her from scratching herself too badly - her skin was getting raw where she was scratching, so it does help to put a shirt on her. I think I'm gonna buy a pack of baby shirts from Target, she's gonna need a few because all the scratching inevitably results in holes. There's no point spending $15 on a dog shirt, when I can probably get 4 or 5 baby shirts for around that price. Well, I haven't looked into the prices, but I'm sure they're a lot cheaper than dog clothes anyway! She probably needs either a 12 or 18 month size, I'm thinking the 18 month will be better because it'll fit looser. Pugs are hard to buy clothes for because they're broad shouldered and dog clothes that are meant for their weight range and length are usually too small around the shoulders. Ordinarily it wouldn't be an issue because we don't dress them very often, but Gracie seems to feel the cold a lot more than Suzie and with her scratching because of her allergies, it's the only thing we can do to help (apart from the Benadryl of course). Gracie actually seems to love wearing clothes too, she gets all wiggly and happy when we get them out for her. Suzie? Not so much. Apart from the gorgeous pink polka dot dress she wore to our wedding, she loved that one!

:-)

Gosh, the past few days I've spoken to lots of my friends... Wednesday I talked to Taj, who arrives here on April 22nd, and I also talked to my Mom and Dad for a while to tell them about the house and my unexpected tax rebate. My Aunt Dorothy also called, so I spoke to her for a bit too. Thursday I talked to Tamzin, Debbie and Rochelle. It seems to happen like that - I don't get to speak to anyone for ages and then in the space of a couple of days I speak to loads of people. I kinda would prefer it to be more spaced out but hey, what can you do? I guess it just happens to be when people are free - I'm free most of the time, but they're all busy!

Oh - good news, the government shutdown has been averted. Hopefully there will be no disruption while Taj, my Mom and my stepdad are here! :-)

A day in the life of a housewife... again!

This morning I got up at 5.35, made breakfast and coffee, walked the dogs and fed them (Gracie wouldn't eat anything - that pissed me off!). Then I did the dishes, did some laundry, changed our bed linen, dusted, vacuumed, mopped and then cleaned the bathroom. I also cleaned the dogs' water fountain. I cleared the yard of dog poop too. Then I made us lunch, and now I need to do some more dishes and put the other ones away. I'm tired!

We're going to look at some more houses today, there are 4 we're supposed to view this time. Hubby is finishing work an hour early (he didn't take his lunch break) and we're meeting the realtor at one of the houses right after that. Then this evening the in-laws are coming for dinner. It's 92ºF right now and it's going to be 97 later - it's too hot! It's going to be hot for a while, I think. We're in April now and it's not going to cool off now, not much anyway. That means walking the dogs early every day, before it gets too hot for them (and me!).

Last night I had another driving lesson, it was my first one since Sunday. It went really well, I ended up driving for about 4 miles on a main road and didn't do anything wrong! I shifted gear fine every time, I obeyed the speed limit and I didn't drive too far to the right of the lane! Hehe. I also had some traffic lights to contend with, and stopped behind a car without getting too close. I also got a good start when the lights changed, so that was good. I didn't get all stressed out - I think I'm getting the hang of this driving business! :-)

I drove us to our local supermarket on the way back, and parked in the lines albeit at a funny angle! Then I drove us home, the long way, so I didn't have to make any left turns, haha! I enjoyed it, it was a good confidence boost because I did good and that was by far the furthest I've ever driven on a "big" road so it showed me I can do it and everything is fine. :-)

We might finally be getting somewhere... Maybe!

Hubby got an email from our realtor last night, she now has her computer back virus-free and found hubby's emails which had somehow gone into her junk mail. Hopefully we might be able to look at some houses when hubby finishes work today at 3... Fingers crossed, anyway.

When we went to get our mortgage pre-approval, it was based on 20% down which is what hubby wants to do. Our realtor has now said she doesn't understand why we don't want to just put 3.5% down, like most first time buyers. Well, that'd be because we'd end up borrowing a lot more and our monthly payments would be higher, and hubby has saved up so what's the point of not putting down 20%? It makes more sense to us to put more money down and have lower monthly payments - otherwise the mortgage will be crippling us! 3.5% is fine for people who haven't got savings, but it seems daft to only put that down when you do have the money there!

The dogs had a fight this morning, it was the first time in a while. Neither of them was hurt, hubby grabbed Suzie as soon as she started and then I got the spray bottle and used it on them both. It didn't have any effect this time but I think it's because I didn't get it in time - it was on the dining table and I was in the living room area, so it took me a little longer to get it. All's well now though, thank goodness.

I took them for a short walk just before 9 a.m. - it was already 70ºF then, it's going to be 83 today, then 86 tomorrow, 92 Thursday, 95 Friday... yuck! This is spring? Damn!

I'm not exactly looking forward to summer in the desert, it'll certainly be an experience... =/

Busy again

This morning I made us coffee and breakfast, did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen... I fed the dogs, hubby medicated them... Then I dusted, vacuumed, mopped and cleaned the bathroom. I also did a bunch of laundry too and put away all the clothes I washed yesterday.

After all that I had a shower and then we took Suzie up to the vet, they need to try and get a urine sample and see how her UTI is responding to the antibiotics. I hope they manage to get a sample! The house feels really odd without her here, it's not nice. I miss my baby!

When we got back from dropping Suzie at the vet, I took Gracie for a quick walk so she could do her "business" hehe, and now I'm home and I've done everything that needs doing already... I'd finished cleaning the house by just before 9.15 a.m. so I was pretty productive today.

Tonight we're going to the filming session for Suzie's agility class, I hope she does well this time because they're going to put it on the internet! Hopefully she'll get a little bit of practice time beforehand. I know a few of the other people were going to take their dogs for a half hour practice session yesterday, but we didn't go. It would've been another $10 which isn't bad at all, but we didn't arrange to do it. Oh well, I'm sure it'll go fine.

Well, I'd better make us some lunch. Soup and sandwiches! I'm really hungry, it's almost 5 hours since we ate breakfast (at 6 this morning) so we're ready for lunch even though it's not even 11 a.m. yet!

Sunday

I had another driving lesson today, which went pretty well. At one point I had some idiot in an SUV tailgating me, even though I was actually driving slightly over the speed limit. That pissed me off - I slowed down and gave them the finger! Oops. I probably shouldn't do that, but it worked, they backed off. I'm not gonna be bullied into driving faster just because some impatient tw*t behind me can't tolerate the speed limit! Some people... jeez!

I'm doing much better with changing gears and my confidence levels are higher now too. I'm getting used to driving on the big roads - it's still daunting to me but I just need to keep doing it and eventually it'll be second nature.

After my lesson we went to get some groceries, then came home. I've been doing some laundry and prepping for dinner tonight, we're making green curry so I've chopped up the onion and red bell pepper, and the chicken. We're taking the girls to the dog park in around half an hour, so when we get back dinner shouldn't take too long to make. I've also done the dishes twice today already, after our pancake breakfast and just now too. I'm really trying to keep on top of the housework at the moment, it's easy to let things slide sometimes and I end up getting mad at myself so I'm making a concerted effort to be a good little housewife. I'm still not sure it's really who I am, but I'm trying to give it a chance. I do want to provide a good home environment for us, I can't provide for us financially right now so it's the best I can do really. The thing is, I could get a random job doing something rubbish, and I don't want to put people down who do those jobs because I think people do whatever they have to do in order to live, but I don't need to work right now. In some ways I feel guilty about that, but then at the same time it's not really anyone's business but ours. Hubby is happy with our situation, and he likes that the house is kept nice without him having to do anything around the house. I can also take care of the dogs so he doesn't have to worry about them while he's working. Basically what I'm saying is that this works for us - so I don't know why I feel guilty sometimes. I'm just not used to being unemployed yet, I guess!

We still haven't seen any houses yet, I really hope our realtor gets in touch with us soon (i.e. tonight or tomorrow) to set up an appointment with us. I don't want to sound harsh, but if she doesn't then I'm considering hiring someone else. Our lease on the house is up in 8 months and we want to find somewhere soon to get the ball rolling!

Bored!

We were hoping to look at some houses today, but those plans fell through. Our realtor isn't available and her computer has a load of viruses on it, so she's waiting to get it back. For some reason the emails hubby sent her over the last couple of days didn't get forwarded to her Blackberry (maybe they went in her junk mail?) so she hasn't been able to research the house listings we sent her yet. So maybe tomorrow, or sometime during the week we can start looking at houses properly.

Not sure what we're going to do instead today, we took the girls for a walk and that's it so far. I'd really like to go somewhere and do something, but I don't know what. I don't have any money right now anyway, and hubby can't think of anything for us to do either. We can't leave the dogs for too long because we're having to crate Suzie when we're out, just in case the dogs fight.

Tonight we're going out to a buffet with the in-laws, so that should be good. We're gonna take the dogs to their house and leave them there (Suzie in her crate) and then we won't have to rush home to feed them and give them their meds (Suzie needs her antibiotics at 8 p.m. and Gracie needs her eyedrops, joint supplement and antihistamine!!! Too many meds to keep track of, but we're managing!)

So, what to do? Hmmm...

Busy busy!

This morning I got up with hubby at 5.50 a.m. (he starts work at 6) and made us coffee and breakfast. I also did some laundry and changed our bedding. Around 8 a.m. I gave the girls their breakfast and their meds, then did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, tidied the house, dusted all over, vacuumed everywhere, mopped all the tile floors, cleaned the pugs' water fountain, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the sliding door in the living room and cleared the yard of pug poop. Then I took a shower and hubby took me out for lunch at the local Thai restaurant which was a lovely surprise!

I might need a nap now, I've been on the go non-stop for 7 hours now! :-)

Also - the dogs are doing much better now. We've started using the water spray bottle again with Suzie which is a good deterrent and stops bad behavior in its tracks! Yay!

A long one!

On Friday my Dad emailed me so I called him. He said he would call me sometime this week, so again, we'll see. I think if/when he doesn't call, which is likely given his past history, I should just ignore him and not bother telling him again how annoying it is when he does that. I'll just wait to hear from him in another 3 weeks or so, and keep it inside. I mean, I've told him enough times now how much it upsets me when he doesn't call me when he's supposed to, so if he continues to do that then I'll just assume he doesn't care that he's upsetting me.

Also on Friday I was involved in the rescue of 2 dogs found wandering in my neighborhood. I was walking Suzie and Gracie just after 9 a.m. when I saw these 2 dogs walking towards us, and a guy walking a bit behind them. I assumed they were with him, but he asked me if I knew whose dogs they were. He'd first seen them at 8 a.m. in his street, and he'd been tracking them ever since. He'd called the Humane Society and they said they would send someone. In the meantime I kept an eye on the dogs and he went knocking on doors to see if anyone knew the dogs. We thought they'd maybe escaped from someone's yard or something. The guy brought some dog food and water out for the dogs, but they wouldn't go near either of them. Basically they were really skittish and you couldn't get close to them. Neither dog was wearing a collar. They were 2 shelties, they looked pretty well cared for and I don't think they'd been loose for very long. I borrowed the guy's cell phone to call my hubby, and he came to get our dogs to take them home. He also googled a bunch of different shelters and rescue organizations and started calling around, with no luck. At 10.15 a.m. I called the Humane Society again, and asked when someone might get to the dogs. The guy I spoke to was pretty rude and informed me that they would "try to be there by 3 p.m." - I told him we were trying to keep the dogs away from the 2 very busy main roads, and the dogs likely wouldn't still be there by 3 p.m. and he said, "What do you want me to do about it?" - I said that we didn't want the dogs to get hit by a car and he asked if they'd been hit yet so when I said "No, not yet" he also responded with "What do you want me to do about it?" - well wouldn't it be better to rescue the dogs before they got hit?! What the hell?!

The guy who'd found the dogs originally had to leave to go to work, so I stayed to keep watch over the dogs.

Hubby got in touch with a different organization at 11 a.m. who said it would be 6 to 8 hours before they could come. Brilliant - it'd be getting dark by that point! He also called AZ Sheltie Rescue, and left a message.

A lady rode by on her bicycle and I stopped her and asked if she recognized the dogs - she didn't, but she stayed with me to help. She called her sister and she came along too. We were trying to keep the dogs in a safe section, away from the roads. One of the women called the cops to see if they would send anyone, I ended up speaking to them over the phone and they told me someone would be dispatched very soon, as in it would be the next call to be dispatched. They took my (hubby's) cell phone number (I had his cell by that point) and they called me right back to say they wouldn't be able to send anyone after all because the dogs weren't attacking anyone. I was gutted.

One of the women who just moved in to a house opposite where all this was going on brought me a bottle of water out, because I'd been there for ages! Hubby brought me a sandwich, some chips, a Pepsi and a bottle of water too. I hadn't eaten breakfast because I'd been planning to have it after our walk, which would've been around 9.30! I was pretty hungry by that point.

Around 1 p.m. the dogs started trying to make a run for it, we tried to stop them but they got away. They were so scared, it was awful. I wished they would just realize we were trying to help, but obviously they didn't know us and had no reason to trust us. They ended up running right across one of the main roads, and almost got hit by traffic. The ladies on the bicycles followed them but I was on foot and didn't know what to do. I ended up walking around the neighborhood once more, not expecting to see the dogs again but hoping they might return to the area. I spotted one of the ladies on her bicycle and one of the dogs was there too - yay! I kept an eye on the dog, watching him go up and down the green belt. I tried throwing him pieces of my sandwich, thinking he might be hungry, but he ignored them. I walked all the way down towards where the dog was, under a bridge that goes under the road. I saw another neighbor and talked to her for a bit, we watched the dog from a distance. I got a voicemail from AZ Sheltie Rescue, saying they'd send someone local out to our location. Hubby called them again to tell them our current location.

The dog then moved back the other way, to where the 2 dogs had been originally. I'd left the rest of my sandwich by a tree when I'd started following the dog, and he stopped by the tree for a while so I figured he was eating my sandwich - he ate the whole thing, which was good, at least he wouldn't be hungry. Then he ran off again. At that point I couldn't really do anything so I reluctantly went home, defeated. I was really worried about the dogs, they were now separated and probably panicking like crazy. When I got home I realized I had pretty terrible sunburn - my face, apart from where my sunglasses were, was really really red, my arms were too and so were the backs of my legs. When I'd left the house the UV index was low, and only planning to be out for 30-40 minutes I didn't put any sunscreen on. Damn! I was pretty upset about the dogs, I really thought they'd get hit by a car or something, and the fact they were no longer together really upset me too. When I got home hubby called AZ Sheltie Rescue again to let them know the dogs had bolted and we didn't know where they were now, and he called the Humane Society and Animal Control to tell them the same. No point having them spend time coming out when the dogs were no longer there...

All day Saturday I kept wondering about the dogs, hoping they'd be rescued by someone else. I didn't see any posters in our area, I half expected to see a "missing dogs" poster but didn't. If I had, I'd have rung them and told them what had happened, and that a lot of people had tried really hard to help but to no avail.

Then on Sunday we took the girls to the dog park and lo and behold, there were 2 posters saying "Found - 2 sheltie dogs" !!! Yay! I took the details (Craigslist listing and email address) and checked it out when I got home - and it was those 2 dogs, and they were both together and safe. Thank God! I emailed the woman and it was one of the ladies who'd been helping me out, the ones with the bicycles (sisters). She told me that they'd got one of the dogs cornered in one of their neighbors' yards, so trapped it in there, then a few hours later around 6.30 p.m. they'd found the other one too and taken it back to the same place to reunite the dogs. I was so happy to hear that! The lady whose yard the dogs were in kept the dogs overnight and in the morning Animal Control came to collect them. The women who eventually managed to catch the dogs got in touch with AZ Sheltie Rescue and they've agreed to take both dogs once they've been evaluated at the shelter (standard procedure). That evaluation takes about 3 days. Neither dog had a microchip and as they had no collars there's no way to identify them. Poor things. I suspect they'd been abandoned, nobody so far has come looking for them and it's been 4 days now so you'd think if they have an owner they'd be frantically searching for them.

Anyway, it's good to know the story of these dogs will have a happy ending - someone will love them again, hopefully they'll get re-homed together and have a lovely new family. It's nice to know my 5 hour effort wasn't in vain, too! :-)

On Sunday we took the girls to an APARN fundraiser, PugStock 2011! The theme of the event was, of course, hippie! We went to a farmers market on Saturday and a lady there sells loads of tie-dye stuff, she didn't have anything for dogs but she had lots of baby T-shirts. We asked if we could try one on our dog and she was happy for us to do so - we ended up with 2 shirts for the girls, both 18 month size! They fit great. Only $10 each, too - much cheaper than "proper" doggy clothes!

We had a great day at PugStock, and I think APARN will have made quite a bit of money. They adopted out 7 pugs that I'm aware of, hopefully more adoptions will follow soon. The lady who'd been fostering Gracie before we took her was really happy to see Gracie again. She said they had another 6 pugs being surrendered that day, it's so so sad. They can't adopt them out quick enough - it seems as though for every pug they adopt out, they get another 3 or more! I wish we could take another, but we can't. We're having trouble with Suzie at the moment anyway, she's getting quite aggressive with Gracie at times and we've had to break them up a lot lately because Suzie's trying to fight Gracie. It's horrible, but we're hoping it's a phase that will pass. We took Suzie to her agility class last night and she started acting up there too, with the trainer's dog! How embarrassing... The class finished at 7 p.m. but Wendi, the trainer, stayed behind with us for 45 minutes helping us with Suzie. She showed us a few techniques which really seem to work well, we've been using them since we got home last night. We're going to sign Suzie up for an obedience class too, we'll sort out the details next Monday when we go back for the agility filming session. It's embarrassing because Suzie is so cute but she can be really nasty at the moment, and it's really not cool. She's never shown any aggression towards other dogs, or people, and for it to start now is just horrible. Wendi was saying that she's at that age where things like this do start to happen - she's 19 months. We need to nip it in the bud ASAP, which we're trying to do. The obedience class should help too, we'll learn a lot. The situation with Suzie and Gracie is escalating, it's making Gracie reluctant to eat again and she was doing so well - last week I noticed a big improvement in her general attitude, she seemed to be settling in well and she seemed happier generally. Wendi agreed with me that this could be part of the reason for Suzie's aggression - before last week, Gracie was depressed and very submissive, so Suzie probably didn't feel at all threatened by her, but now Gracie's coming out of her shell so to speak, she does perceive her to be more of a threat. This morning when I gave them their breakfast, Gracie took a while to start eating (long enough for Suzie to finish eating before Gracie had really started) and then Suzie went for Gracie so we had to remove Suzie from the situation. Gracie was really worked up by it, though, understandably. I couldn't get her to eat after that, I tried for 25 minutes and she wouldn't eat. Poor Gracie. It's so frustrating! We just need to persevere with Suzie, making sure she knows we're the boss and not her, and we just need to be consistent. She's turning into a monster!

A Lazy Day

Today hasn't exactly been productive - I didn't get much sleep last night as I had a really vivid, scary, weird dream and I kept getting woken up by my stupid period pain, despite having taken painkillers before bed. I hate it! I've been feeling like absolute crap all day today so haven't done a lot. We took the pug-pugs to the dog park when hubby finished work and Suzie had a good run and play as always. Gracie was a little more confident with people, she even went up to a random guy and let him pet her for a while. I think she's coming out of her shell more every day, it's great! The eating thing is still rather frustrating, she really has to be coaxed to eat. This evening I googled 'dog reluctant to eat' and got some tips - I tried one of them, which was to put something different in with the food. I broke up a beef jerky dog treat into lots of little pieces and mixed it in with the kibbles. It worked really well! I ended up putting another one in there because she stopped eating with about a third of her food left - she ended up eating the whole lot! I don't really want to set a precedent by doing that, but if it makes her eat a good amount then it's worth it. I made sure to give Suzie two of the treats too, so they're both equal! We don't want to create any jealousy between them, of course!

Right now I'm making rice pudding with our leftover rice (we had green curry for dinner) - I'll give the girls a little bit each, Suzie loved it last time. I suppose if Gracie doesn't eat it then Suzie can - she gets plenty of exercise at the dog park! At the moment hubby is laying on the big couch with the two of them, and it looks like Gracie is cuddling Suzie - it's so damn cute! :-)

Great News!

I had my AOS interview this morning and it went extremely well - I've been approved for my green card! Woo-hoo!!!

I took 2 folders full of stuff - all our documents in one and correspondence (cards, letters, emails) in another, to show proof of our marriage. I also took 3 photo albums and the officer looked through all of them. I was very well prepared and it was easy to find all our documents when they were requested, as I made sure there were easy to read tabs on everything. My appointment was for 8.40 a.m. but we were seen about 5 minutes early, and we left the building at 8.55 a.m. so it was only about 20 minutes. It wasn't very stressful, the officer made us feel at ease and even joked around with us a bit which was nice. When he said he was approving me I was just so happy! No more immigration stuff to do now until 90 days before my conditional 2 year green card expires (we'll have to send in some more forms and evidence that we're still married etc. and then I'll get a 10 year green card). What a huge relief! I can actually relax now. Last night I got a bit upset because I couldn't help but wonder, what if they don't approve me... I couldn't bear to be apart from my lovely hubby and our pug girls! We were long-distance for a long time, about 19 months, before I finally had my visa and came to live here, and I couldn't bear to be in that position again. I knew that the interview would most likely go well, but until the officer said that he was approving me I didn't want to get too carried away! I'm so so happy now. I called my mom and my dad (who said he'll call me next week, so I asked if he really would call me this time!!!) and we also called hubby's mom too - she was really happy for us too! It's just wonderful news, it really is! Tonight hubby and I are going out for a nice meal, it'll be lovely. We don't tend to eat out often so when we do, it's a nice treat!

We got up at 6 this morning and with all that nervous energy I'm pretty tired now - I think I'll take the pugs for a nap, they can sleep with me since it'll only be for an hour or so. :-)

Finally got some sleep!

Last night we went to PetSmart and got a new doggy bed for Gracie. It's the same as the one we got for Suzie last year, but green instead of blue (like it really matters!). Suzie settled right away, but Gracie took a while to settle - she wanted to be on the bed with us. I felt really bad for her because I know she's sad right now, but we had to have the bed back to ourselves for our own sanity! We were hardly sleeping at all before. With both of the girls in their beds, we weren't disturbed by Gracie's snoring - what a relief! The girls probably slept better too, they have their own space in their beds and I'm sure when they slept on our bed we were waking them whenever we moved, or when we were trying to get Gracie to stop snoring!

We also got the girls a toy each - Gracie played properly for the first time last night! It was so nice to see! I think she's maybe feeling happier now. Yesterday evening I did have trouble getting her to eat, though. I spent half an hour with her, coaxing her to eat. At first she only ate a few little bits, then she wouldn't eat again for ages. I was about to give up when she started eating again, and she finished her dinner eventually. I hope that's only going to be a temporary thing - I'm sure it's because she's a bit depressed, with having been given away by her original owner. It's completely understandable. I do think she's a little underweight, so I really want her to eat more. I guess we'll just have to work on that. It's not much, maybe a pound or two. As long as she eats twice a day and eats most, if not all, of the food we give her, I'll be happy. When she doesn't eat I feel really bad. I know it's not our fault she's unhappy, but I really feel for her - especially when she looks at me with such a sad look in her eyes. I know people think pugs look sad all the time, but they really don't - they have very expressive faces. Gracie looks happy sometimes, like when we're getting ready to go for a walk. When she's refusing to eat, she looks so sad. The look in her eyes breaks my heart.

Anyway... hopefully getting her to eat breakfast won't be such an ordeal!

My patience is wearing thin with some people!!!

Remember when my friend T stood me up yet again for our Skype chat on Friday? Well, I left it a couple of days and didn't hear anything - there was no apology in my inbox, no message on Facebook, nothing. So, I decided to email her yesterday. I kept it simple - I basically said this:

"Hey, what happened to you on Friday? I waited on Skype for half an hour but didn't see you!

Hope you're ok." [read: Huh, you messed me around again. What's your excuse this time?]

I got a reply later in the day, which basically said this:

"I'm so sorry, I fell asleep after dinner. I'm rubbish aren't I? :-( [Yes, very. Consistently rubbish in fact, to the point where I can't be bothered with you right now despite our 23 year friendship]

I've been to London this weekend... [I didn't even really read the rest of that - I don't care, you could have at least apologized before I asked you what happened!]

I'll get on Skype tomorrow night after work, I'll even set a reminder on my phone!" [Wait, you'll even try to remember?! Oh no, I couldn't ask that much of you, really! Don't be silly!]

I wasn't sure how to reply to that, because I was still kinda mad about the whole thing seeing as she consistently lets me down. So after thinking about it a while, today I replied to that email. I didn't address any of the "apology" stuff - I wasn't about to tell her it's fine, because frankly it really isn't fine at all. Once would be alright - repeated occasions of her flaking on me are not fine! I just said that this week is a bit crazy, I have my AOS interview and we just got another pug. I said, "Maybe we can talk sometime next week" - although I doubt it very much, because even if I make plans with her, I think we're all aware that the chances of those plans coming together are approximately 10% right now.

Our mutual friend, R, says I'm too nice to her and I should tell her how rude she's being. She said: "The way T is, is rubbish and down right rude. Who does she think she is? I think the next time you speak you need to make it clear that you're angry about it or she'll keep doing it. She's taking you for granted."

To be honest, I couldn't agree more. I don't really want to have a confrontation about it, but I don't want it to keep happening. Now it's got to the point where I don't even want to make plans with her because it's pointless and all it does is annoy me more when she doesn't show. Maybe R is right when she says I'm too nice to T - nothing will change if I don't say anything, will it? She just expects me to be available whenever she dictates, and then she doesn't show up herself. At least if she would apologize within a reasonable amount of time, it wouldn't be as bad. I shouldn't have to go fishing for answers. Two days was plenty of time for her to send me a quick message explaining. A couple of months back, she did the same thing and I refrained from getting in touch with her - I wanted to see how long it would take her to apologize. Answer: 5 days! This, from the person who's "always connected" because she has an iPhone. The fact that it would be so easy for her to just get in touch makes it all the worse, doesn't it?

On this note, how about my Dad? Well, he still hasn't called me. He was meant to 2 friggin' weeks ago. He emailed me on Saturday to tell me he's getting a rescue dog. I emailed back, saying that's funny because we'd just got our rescue pug. He knew nothing of the possibility of us adopting another pug, because he hadn't kept his word and called me. I also put this in the email:

"I thought you were going to call me last week? Give me a call when you get a chance."

He replied again, but no mention of why he hasn't called or even if he will call. So, I'm still not calling him. He can afford to give me a call every other week at least, it's not like I'm expecting to speak to him daily for goodness' sake. Since I moved to the US 5 months ago, I've grown really tired of many of my so-called relationships with people back in the UK being so one-sided, with most people making little to no effort to keep in touch with me. The worst offenders? My Dad, T and my cousin. Funny how I still haven't heard anything from him. Funny also how he was on Skype a little while ago while I was on, and I typed a couple of messages to him with no response yet again. Yet he has the audacity to send me a Skype message when I'm offline, when he knows I'm offline, saying he hasn't seen me on there for ages! I guess you haven't checked your inbox for at least 3 months, then - if you did, you'd see about 4 emails from me, one from the other day saying that I've been emailing you and heard nothing back since November.

Maybe it's time to cut some people out of my life, if all they do is cause me hurt. I don't want to do that, but how much more should I really take? I mean, I've tried and tried, and what's the point? It really does upset me sometimes how people who are supposedly meant to care about me just clearly don't give a fuck. If they do, they have a very strange way of showing it. How long does it really take to reply to an email? How difficult is it to pick up the damn phone and dial my number? Why make plans with me and repeatedly allow them to fall through, leaving me sitting here like a fucking idiot? I don't understand these people at all.

I was thinking about the whole thing with my cousin... how I've always gone out of my way to see him and his family, how I spent a pretty penny on his and his wife's wedding gifts, how I bought loads of nice gifts for their baby when he was born in March last year, how I took them out for a pre-baby meal. When hubby and I got married in October, did I get so much as a card from them? Nope. What made it even worse is that they were actually in Florida at the time, and they could have bought and sent a card for less than $3. Really, it was too much effort? I can tell you now, if it was my cousin who had emigrated I would have sent a nice card at least. Maybe that means I'm a mug, then? When it's their baby boy's first birthday next month, I will probably go to the trouble of buying him a nice card and mailing it. Maybe what I should do, if I haven't heard from my cousin by then (which seems pretty likely at this rate) is write him a letter and put it in with the card. I could write that it would've been nice if he could've bothered to at least attempt to keep in touch with me, given that nowadays it's not exactly hard. I know he's on his computer a lot, because he's often on Skype and it tells you if the person is on their cell phone (which it doesn't say for him). Not one reply to any of my messages on there, and no replies to emails for 3 months? Shoddy.

I only wish it didn't bother me so much. Perhaps I ought to just move on, I have a new life here with my wonderful, gorgeous husband, our two lovely pug girls and not to forget our fishy! I didn't want to lose touch with people back in the UK, and I tried my best to make sure that didn't happen, but there's only so much one person can do. How many emails should you send with no response whatsoever, before you give up? I think I've reached my limit with my cousin now. As for T, well, I don't know. I don't hate her or anything, but I hate the way she's been treating me. I just don't get it - it's like she has no regard for me whatsoever. I know I'm not working, but that doesn't mean that everyone can just mess me around. My time is still important, and I do have things to do. Now we have Gracie, I have more responsibilities with the pugs - feeding, potty breaks, walking, grooming. Gracie is difficult with food at the moment, she has to really be enticed to eat. I have to feed Suzie, then put her in the office with hubby while I feed Gracie in the hallway with no doors open so she's pretty much stuck there with me (otherwise she just goes off). She's getting better but it's been a little stressful. I know she's still adjusting to us and she's probably still missing her original owner(s) so she's probably sad. I can completely understand that, of course. I expected it, but I still need for her to eat so she can stay strong. It's less than 72 hours since she came to live with us so I'm sure in a little while she'll be more settled, but I just want her to be happy. She sometimes looks so scared and confused and my heart breaks for her. I know she must be so sad that her original owner effectively abandoned her - I know they didn't actually abandon her, but I'm sure that's how Gracie feels because she doesn't understand. I wonder if her original owner is missing her too. Apparently their reason for surrendering her was that they couldn't afford to keep their dogs - if that's true then I'm sure they're really sad about it. I know I would be. All Gracie really knows is that she spent virtually her whole life with that person, and all of a sudden they drove her to a stranger's house and left her there. Her foster mom told me that she cried actual tears and stared at the door that whole night, she was so upset. How heartbreaking is that? And some people think animals don't have feelings.

You know, the way a lot of my friends and family have treated me since September makes me love my pugs all the more. They're always here for me and they always will be - unlike some people I've mentioned. Even Gracie, who as I said has been with us less than 72 hours, is already way more loyal than they are!

We are now a family of four!

I was right when I said that once we got approval from our landlord to have a second dog, everything would move very quickly! A nice lady from APARN came round to do our home check at 7 p.m. on Friday, and she phoned the lady who was fostering Jessyka to let her know that everything was great. We went to collect her right after that!

Today is our second full day with her, and everything is going really well. Suzie (our first pug-pug) was so excited when we brought Jessyka home, she seemed to think it was the best present ever! Suzie hasn't been jealous much, so that's good. We're very conscious of making sure she doesn't feel at all excluded. She's doing so well. Jessyka didn't respond to her name at all, or any variations of it (Jess, Jessie). We've renamed her Gracie, and she responded to it pretty much immediately. I think it suits her a lot more and she seems to like it!

Right now Suzie and Gracie are playing - it's cute! I don't think Gracie is used to playing the way Suzie does, but every so often she'll try. I'm sure she'll get used to it. There hasn't been any nastiness between them yet, so hopefully it'll stay that way.

Gracie walks really nicely on the leash, which is great. She doesn't seem to know "sit" though so we're trying to teach her. She'll do it sometimes, but you have to say it lots of times first and even then she won't always do it. I'm sure as she gets more comfortable with us she'll come out of her shell and be more amenable to training. I'm so impressed by how she's settling in though, she's great!

The lady who was fostering her is so lovely, she gave us a zip-lock bag with some food in it (Gracie was eating a different type of food to what Suzie eats) and she gave us some treats for her too. She also gave us Gracie's favorite toy, a santa teddy. She didn't want her to go without that, it's so sweet of her (it wasn't Gracie's toy originally, it belonged to the foster mom's pugs but Gracie loves it). Gracie also had a little stripey purple and white shirt on which says "CUTE" on the back - too true! Foster mom wanted her to take that with her too, which is sweet. APARN people are so lovely and they do such good work.

Here's a pic of Gracie - she's such a pretty girl! And it looks like she's going to be a Mommy's girl, which suits me just fine (Suzie is most definitely a Daddy's girl!)