Presenting the Great Boo-dini!

(Drum-roll please......) Ladies and Gents I give you the "Great Boo-dini"! Master escape artist extraordinaire!

Okay , this is Bailey (a.k.a. Boo). Today I took Bail's, Cookie, and Bunny to my daughters for grooming. I do the grooming, Steph supplies lunch and her three dogs, that I also groom. Being a good "doggie" mom I have seat belt harnesses for my dogs. They lock the dog in the seat so that if I have to stop suddenly, or gosh forbid have an accident, they are safe and won't risk being flung about. Dogs left loose in a car with no protection (especially these little ones) risk broken limbs, torn muscles, or worse (broken backs and necks).

After grooming my dogs are ready to go home. So I carefully adjust the harnesses and lock them down and head out. As I pull out of my daughters sub I look back and see Bailey standing there, happy as clam, NO harness! So I pull over. Okay maybe I need to tighten the straps, he was groomed. I do all that lock him in and we are off again.

About three miles later I feel a wet nose touch my arm, yep, it's Boo and once more he has shed his harness. So I pull over. Get out, tighten the straps, stick my fingers to make sure they are not too tight, and off we go.

I am just going to tell you this happened "twice" more before we got home, I was ready to krazy glue the darn thing on him! I didn't even remove that much hair?

He was just so stinkin proud of himself every time he did it too!

Here is our other Yorkie the "Cookie" (little monster). Steve was complaining about her hair in her face, so today she got her bangs cut so you can really see her eyes. Her fur is more thin and wiry that Baileys so all she has done is wash, brush, bum and "lady" parts trimmed, paws, eyes and ears. (she managed to stay in her harness!)

On a sadder note. I was asked by my daughter to groom a dog who would be going up for adoption. A Llaso male about 3 years (?) old who was adopted by a woman who did not want to see him put down. She took him to a groomer, whom he bit and the woman became afraid to handle him. This in turn let this dominant little dog really get out of control.

She gave them to Harley's Haven and my daughter was fostering him. She really had not had any issues with him (other than having to correct him a couple times), that is until today.

She brought him out to be groomed and I don't know what happened to this dog in his short life but apparently this triggered something in him. He went "crazy". I mean "C-R-A-Z-Y", biting tearing, clawing crazy. Thank goodness she had bite proof gloves on.

All I know is that he was fine, letting me pet him. I turned on my razor (with the guard on it. I do this to see if they are okay with the sound, then with the guard on I touch them with it to see how they react to the vibration, before attempting any cut). He seemed okay. Then all Steph did was touch the long hair on the one side of his face, and BAM! Crazy, violent dog. Foaming, biting and snarling.

The thing was this was not a "fear"based reaction. Even after holding him and getting him calm, all she had to do was try to touch him and the crazy started again. He bit her "leather padded" protection gloves so hard he broke a blood vessel in her finger and shook her up. This grooming was not going to happen.

The real problem was that after this, he was taken for an assessment and it was decided that he be put down. They could not guarantee that this behavior could be corrected. Poor "fozzie" was too great a liability to ever be adopted out. So he was euthanized. I felt so bad. Steph was clearly shaken and upset, all she said was "its too bad people do this to animals, let their bad behavior take over until they cannot be helped". I felt awful. They have worked with some pretty messed up animals, most can be corrected and placed, but this was the first time they had to accept that this would not be the case.

A Christening Card for Logan

It was the baptism for my latest "great-nephew" this weekend. I made this card to send as we could not attend. I did not pay very close attention to the invite. Most, well "all" of the baptism's I've attended were in the afternoon, after mass. This was at 9:00am in the morning, before mass? It's a fair distance from us so we made our apologies and did not attend. It was raining all weekend, and the thought of driving early in the morning in the rain was a bit much.

Let's see that makes me a Great Aunt now of "eight" nephews and only one niece! I haven't even seen the niece as she is in Florida. What's with all the boys??? I don't mind boys, but I would really like to make a frilly girl card. Hmmmm, with 3 brothers and 3 sisters, and Steve comes from a family of 6 you would think the odds of a girl here and there would be better.

I used my christening stamp from Lily of the Valley. The paper is Debbie Mumm.

Friday Fun

So off to Terri's (after a few errands) for a "creative" day. We both purchased the TH die of the little town. Gosh its a lot smaller than I anticipated. Terri was going to do a "Tim Holtz" inspired town. Since I am not as organized as her I decided to go what I could easily get my hands on. at the time it was some "shabby chic" paper and trims. I had not seen the dies up close yet so I guess-timated at the dimensions and printed up some images I had to use. Throwing some bits and bobs into a couple bags I headed over.

Here is my finished town, I used jump rings I made with wire to bind the houses together.

Here it is laid flat..... sorry the flash totally washes out the glitter. Its been rainy and overcast all day so no natural light for a good photo.

After finishing the little TH "town" we made a tag. I decided to use the papers left over from the our first project to make this.....

Terri contributed the sweet trimming along the bottom, the pretty blue flowers, and the cool little sequins that look like mini rosettes on my mini banner. It was fun, we even managed to steal away for a "frozen custard", which was just what I needed. It was a rough week at work. Business is not good, and the downtown here has been all torn up.

I have some of my charms in a local shop here, but with the construction company botching things up there has been no way to get to the shops. The shop owners are understandably upset. They (The construction company) was supposed to only tear up one side on the street at a time. Instead they took out "all" the sidewalks downtown. You cannot get near a shop without going way out of your way. I won't even begin to tell you what a nightmare it is trying to get home from work every night.

So nothing is selling there, and to make matters worse she had to use the money she did have to pay her rent, so she could not pay me yet for the pieces she did sell! I may have to pull my charms out and try another place, since she just informed me that she was told that now they don't expect to be by the July 1st deadline. Mix in trouble with where my husband works, our dehumidifier breaking down, and unexpected bills and well I was not really in the mood to create.

I have to thank Terri for being so supportive and getting me out of my funk, long enough to have a little fun. Now please head over to her blog TerrisBloomingIdeas and check out her town and tag.

Mothers Day Weekend

It was a busy productive weekend. Spent Friday packing our freezer. The nearby IGA had their semi-annual meat sale. Time to stock up. Started off at 8:00am, and finished wrapping up and packing up around 3:30! After cleaning up a shower and off to see our son, John, play at the Magic Bag in dowtown Ferndale. He was sitting on on the first two bands and playing with his band "The Infatuations". They won the Vitamin Water "Peoples Choice Award" this year (at the Detroit Music awards). It was a nice evening out with our daughter Steph, and son-in-law Pat. Saturday a set of stamps I had ordered from My Favorite Things arrived. After some light housecleaning I made a few cards with them. The set I purchased came with the die to cut out the typewriter and the paper. I used my Stampin Up background stamp, and some vintage seam binding to make the bows. These stamps included some clever saying, my favorite being "don't make me use ALL CAPS!"

Later I had to fill some soldered charm orders I received. No, not for all of these, but if I am going to solder, well I might as well do a few extra. I had done some "lock and key" charms and which were a big hit. This time I played with some small bevels, clear baubles, and added a few vintage glass crystals to some of them.

My husband and my children surprised me at work Friday. My cubicle is right next to the delivery door for the office. So often I am the one to sign and recieve incoming packages and registgered materials that arrive. When our Fed-Ex delivery lady showed up I jokingly saw the long bax and said "You shouldn't have". She laughed and said "Sure", and when I looked down I saw my name was on the box! Inside was two dozen lovely Carnations and a vase. I love Carnations and getting them at work was a nice surprise. I knew that although the card read "From Steven, and the children" my daughter Steph had masterminded this. She is so good that way and knows how special getting flowers sent makes me feel. It was nice of her to organize this and for my children and Steve to think of this... On Sunday morning Steve gave me this card. Love it! I am always telling them I am the Queen. The card he gave me says "Mothers Day, is a chance for us to treat you like a Queen!", inside it says "Yeah, like a Queen with lazy subjects who don't listen!" Hmmmm, I wondered if someone hadn't been spying on me, because this was so something I would say! Ha Ha

Mothers Day was so nice. We went to Steph and Pat's home, John joined us, and later Kimberly joined us via Skype from Kalamazoo (where she attends college). We had grilled burgers and wine. We also got to enjoy their 1st anniversary cake (provided by the company that made their wedding cake, as part of their wedding package).

It was a relaxing day, the weather was lovely, the food good, and what better company than ones family.