Kirby's First Veteran Debut

Yesterday I drove 4 hours north to Concord, North Carolina! Thankfully I did not have to leave at the crack of dawn but either way it was a long drive. A few weeks ago I entered Kirby in a Doberman Specialty. It would be his first time entered in a dog show since 2006! While I knew he had not forgotten how to act or what to do, I did think he would be so excited he would not be able to contain himself. This thought turned out to be VERY true. I entered him in the Veteran age group of 7-9 years of age, I was very excited as he will be 9 in February and looks fabulous for an old man. So I arrived in the very cold and blustery state of North Carolina around 1:30pm, the specialty started at 2:00pm so this gave Kirby plenty of time to figure out just exactly where he was. It took him all of 2 minutes! I brought him into the building and I swear my old man was bursting with excitement. He showed beautifully, a little wild but I could not be more proud of him.

I do have to admit that both on the way up there and on the way home, I did break down and cry! Driving all alone just me and him, brought back so many memories. Kirby and I have been all over the Northwest from Washington to California to Nevada to Montana and every where in between. He has been the most loyal friend anyone could ever ask for. I only hope I have been half the friend to him. To be honest I am a little suprised that he is not deaf, after all these years of listening to me sing. LOL!! The tears on the way home were brought on by the thought of what life would be like without him. Somehow that thought just doesn't even seem possible. While I know in reality that someday my life will be without him, I can't help but wish he will always be there. With as much winning as he and I did together those are not my favorite memories of him. I never thought after Queenie passed away that I would ever love a dog as much as I loved her, but Kirby is easily loved that much! He makes me laugh everyday, he is clueless to the idea that the world does not revolve around him. So with each day that passes I try to make sure I give him an extra hug and remind him of how much I love him. I can only hope he knows how much I do love him. He sleeps on our bed every night and makes sure to guard me while Anthony is at work. I often wonder who will fill his shoes when he is gone, for those shoes are so big it may take multiple dogs to do so.

Hurricane IDA

Ok so for the last two days I have confirmed the fact that I WILL NEVER live in Florida!!!! This past weekend it came on the news that Hurricane Ida was going to come ashore on Tuesday. It was also said that Georgia and surrounding states were going to be getting some rain! SOME RAIN, how about hurricane rain from 12:30am Tuesday morning until 3:00am Wednesday morning!!!! The poor dogs are miserable, they cant go outside, we cant go to the park all we can do is clean house and watch movies, which is fine for about 3 hours then we all get restless!! Now today, Wednesday we have 25-30mph winds! My beautiful pecan trees that were changing colors and the leaves were beginning to fall are mostly BARE! My back yard ressembles the Florida Everglades, minus the native wildlife! The wind is blowing so hard it sounds like a train hurling itself right into my house! So agenda for the day, laundry and watch more movies! I will take pictures of my everglades and my very bare, pathetic looking pecan trees! On a positive note all those leaves in my yard.....my landlord is going to clean up! Bless him!! He does all of our mowing and lawn maintence. We are very lucky tenants!

Been a while!

Well it is been sometime since I posted, but we/I have been busy! These past two weeks I have been away at dog shows. Glad that is over, I don't like being away from my hubby, nor my dogs! Also we had Maddie Grace's second birthday, complete with cupcakes, and party hats! Some interesting news on the homefront by the way........ I am pretty sure we are moving to St. Louis, MO!! While I was in Virginia Beach (beautiful place, highly reccommend it as a place to visit!) Anthony called and said that Jaco (who is the chef he works for) was offered a promotion if he transfered to St. Louis. Jaco took the position and told them that he had a person he wanted to bring him too! Soooo......when Jaco got back he told Anthony about his offer as well as Anthony's offer too. This move will also be a promtion for Anthony! I like to think Jaco was not only looking out for Anthony but for me as he knows how much I want to get the HECK out of here!!!! Ultimately I think we will make it to Washington but this is kind of a weird twisted half way move! I never thought I would live in St. Louis, but then again I never thought I would live out here either! This is all not going to take place until after the first of the year, so in the meantime I am going to start going through junk and start throwing away at the speed of light! I DO NOT want to move half of this stuff we have so I am just going to start in our closet and move throughout the house! I WILL SHOW NO MERCY! Some stuff I think I am going to venture out and sell on ebay or craiglist!

We are currently looking at possibly purchasing a house as having 5 dogs, does not make us prime rental candidates! Anthony and I have discussed a plan of living there 2-3 years. Hopefully we can accomplish all of this all before spring comes! I need to garden, I love it and it keeps me sane!!!

Tomorrow I will spending some time at Starbucks using their internet looking for a job for me, housing and costs of moving! I am sure by the end of tomorrow I will be depressed but I will also make sure to post all the pictures I have been meaning to post!

Thank you Vicki for the stuff!! I already planted some stuff that I knew would grow!

Garden Clean-up and Mini Pond Feature

These last couple days Anthony and I have been busy trying to clean up the garden and get it ready for the winter. While we have done a lot there is still more work to be done! Believe it or not I still have most of my herbs from this spring, Basil especially! This is Anthony's favorite herb and I am hoping to keep it alive throughout the winter. Since we are just renting the house we live in there is not a greenhouse in my future, unfortunately. So plants are coming inside the house and will be put throughout house, hopefully Maddie and Fannie will not eat them.

However, after some SERIOUS begging I did get my mini pond. Someday I would love to have a large pond with fish and plenty of plant life, I currently have 4 plants and 4 goldfish in my mini pond. This will be my experimental pond to see if having a big pond is really with it! So far so good.

After reading my friends' blog I decided to order Garlic off of one of the websites she recommended. After all, living with a chef you eat a lot of Garlic. Hopefully it will come soon, so I can get it in the pots and ready for the summer harvest. I am hoping to keep a garden journal this year, in all my books, the authors say it is good to do this to help keep track of veggies as well as to learn from year to year.

Simple Weekends!!

These last couple days have been rather uneventful. Anthony had Friday and Saturday off and I don't think we did a single thing on Friday. Oh......well....we made bread! While it looked beautiful in the book it wasn't so good in reality. Actually, Anthony said that, that is what it is suppose to taste like but I guess it was just not what I had in mind. Saturday we went to the State Botanical Garden. Although it wasn't as good as the one we go to in Atlanta it was ok. They are having a plant sale next saturday and I just might go.

Winter time is coming, it happens to be here today! Rain!!! It makes me sad, I can't garden, the dogs don't want to go outside and all any of us want to do is lay on the couch and cuddle. BUT I can and have already started to plan for next years garden.

I will make sure to post pictures of our bread and some of the botanical garden when I get a chance.

Pointer National 2009

This week has been the week of catching up! After being gone for most of the month of September my garden was a mess, the dogs were crazy and I don't even want to talk about my house or the laundry!!!

This past week Anthony and I drove to St. Louis, Mo. It was a long 10 hour drive and making it even longer we left Wednesday morning at 2:30AM AFTER Anthony got off work. YIKES!! It was rough but we made it. And thus began the extravanganza of the pointer national. For you non-dog people this is a dog show that is only for pointers and where breeders and exhibitors come from not only all over the United States but also from countries like New Zealand, Brazil and England.

The first night, we decided to go to dinner at this beautiful restaurant in St. Louis called Niche. Howard, Karen, Anthony and I all piled into Howard's surburban and headed into rural downtown St. Louis. The streets were very narrow, Karen and I sat in the back and held our breath as Anthony and Howard with Jill's (Jill is my GPS, she is a sister to Emily, my parents' GPS, however Emily is English complete with accent and Jill is american, go figure) help carefully and accidently found the restaurant. Niche (http://www.nichestlouis.com/) is this adorable restaurant tucked in amongst old buildings and narrow streets. As we sat down Howard insisted on us trying the chef's tasting menu WITH the wine pairings! It was 5 courses and was a little intimadating to me but Anthony was all for it being the chef that he is, so I figured I would give it a whirl! The food was AMAZING, complete with the Executive Chef coming to our table to explain one of the dishes that happened to be our favorite! The wine was equally as nice but was alot for me to take in!!

Alright enough about food, on to the dogs! Thursday was going to be Fannie's debut with Anthony. I was a little nervous, I have to admit as he had not done all the training I would have done, but this is his dog and I have to let him do it his way! Suprisingly she did beautifully! Although she did not place she atleast didn't embarress neither Anthony or I! Thank goodness!! Friday was a solid day of watching........the weather was beautiful, thankfully, and it was nice to relax and just watch for a change. Towards the end of the day we headed back to the host hotel and visited with some more friends and then went to the DREADED annual meeting! Can I just say it went so SMOOTH, there wasn't even any fighting, which was so NICE!! Once that was over we headed to the bar where we ate St. Louis pizza (don't bother) and drank cheap wine! After sucking down the last of the wine, we headed back to our hotel.

Saturday.....the final day!! It was Fannie's turn again and this time she got 4TH!!!! I was so proud. As girl judging was finishing up the skies decided to open up and pour down on us! Not to be over shadowed by the thunder and lightening that reared its ugly head also. As I jokingly said to Anthony, 'well this should be a great temperment test....' I thought to myself, wonder if my dog will pass! Sure enough I got Ms. Princess Emma out and she was thrilled it was raining and the thunder just made her more hyper and crazed (in a good way)!! The more it rained the happier she got! I should have known since getting dirty is her most favorite thing to do in life!! While she showed beautifully, she did not do anything, nor did her father Skye. Instead both Anthony and I got wonderful comments on beautiful she was and how well she showed! As soon as judging was over we walked the dogs one last time and loaded up the van and headed south. We made it home around 2:30AM, I don't know what it is with us and 2:30AM but we seem to like that time! It was nice to sleep in our own bed and the dogs were happy to be home too!!!

Which brings me to today, with some more catching up to do, I atleast have the most important things caught up. Anthony has the next two days off and who knows what kind of trouble we can get into.