5 things I've learned about having a dog.

Five things I've learned about having a dog.

1.  Your life has changed 180 degrees.
I used to be able to come home and just do nothing.  Or do whatever the hell I wanted.  Or not come home at all, and go to happy hour with friends, or shopping.  But with a dog, you cannot forget the fact that he is waiting on YOU to come home so he can go do his business.  To have someone depend on you that much is scary.  And when they are puppies, they want to be all over you, or your shoes, or the cat.  So there is no peace and quiet, lounging on the couch with your people magazine watching Real Housewives of *insert your fave here*.   There is utter chaos at all times.

2.  Teaching them obedience will be the hardest thing you'll ever do.
It takes so much time, and repetition, and time.  And to get to an end goal, like "leave it", starts with the most mundane and small exercise.  And then you build.  This is for everything.  Going to their "place" in the living room, here, walking, fetch, the list goes on. 

3.  They are so damn cute.
Even when you are so mad at them, and they are all over you and so annoying, they can look up at you with those puppy dog eyes, and you just have to smile........ And then you pin them down on their backs until they know you are the boss.  (I don't do this a lot, but Bowie has a lot of aggression, and this is actually helping a lot.)

4.  I spend a lot more time outside than I ever have.
The only place where he can't get into any trouble, is outside.  I mean, he can... but its less than inside.  And, he's not all over you.  There are so many other cool things outside to keep his attention and discover.  So, as I write this post, I'm sitting outside on our back porch enjoying the mid morning cool air.  And the mosquitos :(  Nope, I'm back in again.   Dogs are also very indecisive.

5.  You think you'll never be able to take a trip again.
Bowie is really good in the car.  However, in 3 weeks we are going to Port Aransas with friends, and I really want to take him.  1. because I don't want to board him and 2. because I don't want anyone to have to take the burden of him for 3 days.  This 4 hour trip seems insurmountable.  So I'm going to try the portable crate this weekend, and see how he does.  The only time I have not had him in our laps driving, was the first day we got  him, and we were driving home from the animal shelter.  I put him in the crate in the back.  Within 2 minutes he had pee'd and poo'd.  So, here goes!

As much as Bowie has changed our lives, its for the better.  He helps me to stay patient.  I'm learning to love and nurture someone that needs me.  And, its great practice for the real thing. 

bowie walker

We have a new member to the Walker family.  Meet Bowie.  Please excuse the onslaught of puppy pictures.

We got Bowie from Austin Pets Alive on my birthday :) and I'm so grateful to have him. His birthday is April 29th. So, he is just over 13 weeks old. He is a lab/shepherd mix and came from a litter of 11. Yes, 11. His momma is a black lab. So we'll see how big he eventually gets.

He's been pretty good with shoes. LOVES  my UGG moccasins. Knows now to "sit" and come "here" pretty well. He also is doing a great job at trying to ring the bell at the back door to let us know he needs to go to the bathroom.  Knock on wood we haven't had any accidents recently. And he hasn't had an accident yet in his crate, which he sometimes will go into on his own if he's tired enough. He doesn't whine much in his crate. (We are crate training. I don't know how else you would do it and still have a balanced dog.) My mom comes over during the day to let him out and he loves her and she is in love with him. She also helps train him.

He is a sweetheart, except for when he thinks your fingers are sausage treats. We've went from whimpering like puppies when he bites, to grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and laying him down on his side with pressure from the other hand/arm for about a minute.  If you we're a fly on the wall, it would be pretty hysterical.

We have been to our first puppy preschool and all in all it wears him out.  I don't really know how much obedience its teaching him, because he still has issues with aggression.  But that's probably more training sessions/a professional.  I'm sure everything we've been doing thus far is actually the wrong thing to do... That would be my luck.

Hope you enjoyed. More blog posts to come about fun new projects David and I, well mostly David is completing.

front yard landscaping

We did it.  We finished the entire front flower bed plantings in one weekend.  1.5 days to be exact.

I'll be honest.  It took a lot of sweat equity to get this operation complete.  And we are not gardening experts  so it was a little bit of "fly by the seat of your pants" and "take the knowledge that dad gave you" type of thing.  And, David has an interesting ability to just know how to get things done.  Have I mentioned he's amazing?

Either way, we finished.  David did the post-hole digging for each plant and I planted and fertilized right behind him, then we mulched.  {Mulch is rule #1 in gardening 101}.  You need mulch to protect against weeds and keep the moisture in. My hamstrings are killing me.   He has blisters on his hands.  All in a days work.


We started at 8am prepping the soil.  David's dad has every tool known to man a gas powered tiller.  It mixes up the dirt and stuff.  It helps.  Our soil seemed pretty good.  Not too dry, really what do we know?  Seemed good to us, so we decided not to add any soil...  Just another step and more time.  

Then we went to The Great Outdoors which was amazing.  A young kid, Taylor, helped us find everything on our list.  (Prepared by me, in excel from the plans that Catherine made for us. Just call me Type A.) Everything we planted is native Texas, they can endure and actually love the sun.  And, we're pretty lucky in that the 100+ trees we have on our lot provide a lot of shade help.

Not everything on the list suited our fancy.  In particular, we opted to not buy as many "japanese yew" plants or "columbine", but substituted with other items that we liked a lot.  It ended up working out really well, and improvise is key to any plan, right?  We walked out of there for a decent price, what we expected, and it was only 11:00 am.

We laid out everything according to the plan, and started digging, planting, fertilizing, and watering.  Its pretty simple, but multiply that by about 100 plants and it gets overwhelming.  But we finished about 2/3 of the planting by 5:30 pm on Saturday, and hit the showers for a fancy shindig at the Four Seasons.  

{Shout out to Kathryn and Rick Ary on their beautiful nuptials last night.  It was such a fun night and Kathryn was so beautiful and the smile on Rick's face! priceless. }

We woke up nursing "the beverly flu"/hangover (thats another post), popped some advil and hydrated and got right back to work on the remaining 1/3 of planting.  

Here is the final product.  We are pretty proud of ourselves and the value that we added to our house.  And, have I mentioned that its scary how well David and I work together?  Go here for the BEFORE.

Dolly in the grass. {they love their home} and it makes me so happy.

All in all, life is good.  We are done with house stuff for at least a year ;)  But of course we've got some ideas in our back pocket.  They include:

- painting the brick

- back yard deck/arbor/built-in grilling station

- back yard landscaping

- pool.  just kidding  (there's no room in our backyard because our septic tank holds all the real estate.)

I'd love to hear what everyone else has been doing to their house/home to ring in Spring/Summer!

we've been busy, doing other stuff

We've been busy lately, with our lives, and not projects.  Unfortunately.

However, we have been doing a little planning.  Of the garden variety.

My best friend Morgan (I'll have to do a post about us/her, its a story.) has an aunt, Catherine Dunne, (catherinedunne@att.net) who is a landscape designer. (That whole family is creativity grand central station.)  And we had her come and give us her opinion on what to do with out front yard and that space in the back that is a blank blah expanse.

See the before's...

Back of house.  Barron wasteland.

Front of house left.  That is all cut down now and another wasteland.

Front of house right.  All cut down and ready for help!

I am so excited to say that little by little we will be planting an entire landscaping menagerie of items this summer.  Its going to be brutal, its going to be a lot of work, and a lot of water, but we are up for the challenge.  Our water bill currently sits at about $12 a month, so we can handle a little uptick in that to support some curb appeal.

Here is Catherine's design she delivered to us a couple of weeks ago.  A fully developed plan relating to our house, sidewalk, driveway and gate to backyard.  

And she gives detailed names of what to plant, and the size, and the plan shows the quantity.

All in all, this was totally worth the investment we made in paying her for her services.  As some may know my dad is a connoisseur of all things outdoors and garden.  But he's really only into his own yard/garden, and not others.  Even if others means his dearly beloved daughter and son and law.  And, anyway, we don't really have the same taste.  He's a little more natural, I'm a little more structured.  

So, there we have it.   I've asked "It's About Thyme" to create a quote for me of all the plants and hopefully we can go pick them up on Saturday morning and make a day of it!  And another day.  Because its going to take all weekend and maybe next.  

Happy gardening!

I'm obsessed. The good kind though.

If there is a good kind.

I LOVE watching MrArturoTrejo on YouTube.  You may have seen the YouTube video "Interview with a 1-Year Old" (below) on Pinterest or Facebook.  I think that is how I started watching their videos in the first place.  And they are crazy addictive.  Short, sweet, funny, and addicting.  And that is why I now subscribe to his channel and watch every week.

{Oh, and I also downloaded "Arturo"'s new app... Tabeso, started using it this weekend during SXSW.  Actually pretty helpful for stuff that is not SXSW sponsored...}

The baby is the most precious.  Jose Luis.  

{However I have learned recently that these are not their real  names, Arturo - Dad, Jose Luis - Baby, and Nancy - Mom.  He changed them for privacy which is probably smart, since there are probably people out there who are way more obsessed than me.  But remember, my obsession is the good kind.}

Enjoy and let me know if you are as obsessed as me.  What a fun family!

miscellaneous monday: forgot a couple

I forgot some important items.  Here are more excerpts from our lives.

Reba some how got a huge gash in her underarm area that we found one night right before bed.  She seemed totally fine so we decided to wait until the next day to take her to the emergency vet.  {Call me a horrible animal parent, but I am not going to let a cat that is not miserable keep me from sleeping in my own bed at normal hours of the night.}  Needless to say I didn't sleep well that night at all and the next day was spent waiting by the phone for the emergency vet (who had some horrible cases come in that day like an electrocuted dog and a run-over dog) to call us and tell us to come get her. 

She wore this collar for, mmm.  Maybe 15 minutes once home until she pulled it off by herself and we didn't find it for a whole week.  So, there was no keeping it on her but she was a champ at not messing with it for the most part.  The WORST part was keeping this cat inside for 2 weeks.  We successfully kept her in for 1 week, but her cries were just getting pathetic.  Oh to be a pet parent. 

And this was the hole that my father-in-law dug to unearth the missing cleanout that solved the drain issue we had a couple of days ago.  Bless him.  However I was very concerned after hearing that he had successfully dug said hole due to the fact that he recently had surgery (successful) in November.  Again, bless him, I love him.

That is all. thank you and good night.

miscellaneous monday: utter enjoyment

We've been utterly enjoying the past several months.  No big events, no obligations, it has been nice just relaxing and living in the moment.  It helps when its too cold outside to make David do yard work and just easier to say lets watch a movie and have some hot toddies.  Here are some fun hi-lights of our past several months.

B.t.w.  I love Instagram and the filters you can use to create some classic pictures.  But sometimes I don't want to post to Instagram to just get that effect.  Are there any apps that just let you create filters for your camera roll pics?

{out at Little Woodrows}

{Rodeo Gala, Dierks Bentley sang a song for me (not really)}

{Dierks Bentley}

{We went and saw Bob Schneider for Valentine's Day.  And had dinner before with one of our favorite couples, Kathy and Ross Wilson}

{I saw this in Southern Living [subscription thanks to Nancy Walker] and am obsessed with this finish on the brick and now am insistent that we do it to ours.}

{Mom is the lover of all furniture consignment stores and found this little gem for us for our master bedroom.  It might need something large and gourd-ish up top...  It holds all my dresses and boots.}

{Did you know that jute rugs create sand deposits on your floor?  Now you do.  We discovered this little surprise one night around 10pm and I made David and my brother move the rug and clean the floor.  All while I had a glass of wine.  Fix. Drape ours over some chairs and blew it out with the yard blower.}

{Rodeo Austin.  This is the most unsanitary thing I have ever done. But it made me laugh.}

{My cowboy.}