Woof Woof!

I woke up Friday morning to Patrick telling me Neeva was gone. We went in panic mode. He drove around the area calling for her and I went to work on emailing our neighborhood about her being lost. I made a flyer and headed into work. Patrick was watching Braysen Friday so Katie could have a day off and they headed off to Coos Bay early. I got into work, tired and groggy from spending all night sniffling and feeling like crap after sitting up on an allergy ridden farm (a beautiful view and farm but I was miserable) for dinner the night before and to top it off – we lost Neeva. I had planned on going into work and then leaving after to hit up the shelters, animal control, vets and then put flyers everywhere I could think of in hopes of finding her. Instead, I came into work and left shortly after with the go ahead from my nice boss. I made all the rounds with my flyers and hit up the vets / shelters with no word of Neeva. Around 11:30 (1/2 hour before the county animal control opens) I received a call from a neighbor, also a local police sheriff, who told me that he believed our dog had been picked up in McMinnville earlier that morning. We thanked him and at noon headed into to see if she was indeed the dog picked up. There laying quietly in the kennel was Neeva and $60 fine later we had our doggy back. They couldn’t find her chip (they didn’t scan low enough) but have written down where it’s located for future records. Hopefully, this isn’t a future occurrence. Patrick secured the area under the gate where she dug out by pouring concrete along the fence line so she can’t dig out through that. Now, we are in the hunt for a possible playmate for our Neeva girl. We think that’s a big reason why she ran off. She’s had a playmate visiting lately, a golden puppy that belongs to our friends. and she seems a bit sad after Lotus leaves. We wanted to wait until Braysen was older so she could help pick out his new puppy but we aren’t sure if we’ll wait that long after all. Finding the right fit for our family is the hard part. Neeva has an amazing personality and we want another doggy that can match that.

Do you ever feel like others plan your week out before you have the chance to plan it yourself? Some weeks I feel like we have a million things we are doing without it actually being something I “schedule” us to do. This week is one is going to be one of those weeks and it’s stressing me out before Monday has even really begun. At times I enjoy the social activities, the dinners, the jaunts to the coast, the family time and on the other hand I just want a weekend to ourselves - Peace and Quiet.

We have all these plans for the backyard, the house, the garage and places I’d like to see this summer (I haven’t even gone downtown Portland, or the Saturday market, or the Waterfront..all places I’d love to see). For weekends now, someone pulls us this way or that way. As Patrick says, we can say “No” but that is a hard word for me. I don’t know, I’m so damn non-confrontational about everything and I realize that more then ever. I never used to be this way, I could stand up and say it how it is but now I hide behind things and don’t speak my mind on half of what pisses me off. It’s the whole “choose your battles” syndrome.

This week is not only 4th of July but a week with family. Let’s start off with the “schedule” of the week.
Monday – working until 1:00, landscaper appt. @ 2:00, store trip @ some point
Tuesday – working until 1:00, friends coming out to sign house papers so visit with them
Wednesday – (4th of July) setting fence posts with FIL, neighborhood bbq @ 5:30 ~ ??
Thursday – drop Mazda off for service @ 8:30am, Me work 9-1, Patrick goes with his dad to the airport to pick up James, picks up Mazda after, dinner at IL’s friends place
Friday – work 9-1 (was going to take off but not now), Patrick goes off with his brother for drinks (don’t get me started)
Saturday – driving to the coast with the family
Sunday – day off??? We need to start taping and marking the house for our 1 year anniv. warranty walk-thru.
*this doesn’t sound so bad but with a toddler things are way more complicated, although I’d never complain about having Braysen in my life!!!!*

We have had big plans for our backyard and have accomplished very little so far. It’s starting to bug me to say the least. The landscapers that the builder used didn’t exactly do the greatest job in preparing our yard for grass & mulch, they basically mowed the weeds and laid everything down on top. So, this spring our weeds were out of control to say the very least. We’ve spent quite a few hours on them but with raining weekends and only being able to work on it when kiddo is napping we are in a losing battle atm. We had a neighbor (who recently moved) offer to help us with our dog run fencing but he has since disappeared basically and we are going to do it ourselves. This Wed. we are finally setting the posts for it and hopefully that will be finished in the next 2 weeks.

I have a landscaper coming out to give me a quote on our deck (or patio since we are now checking into the cost of that – another topic that I do NOT want to get into). We’ll see how much that is going to set us back and maybe see what they quote us on terracing our slope with different levels of beds. I’d like for us to just buy the materials and pay labor but we’ll see how this all works. I’ve never had to work with a landscaper before and I want to get a few more quotes also after this guy. We’ve talked of just doing it ourselves too but finding the time for all this crap is near impossible lately!

This summer has been honestly miserable with rain. This is the first week that it’s going to be especially warm and nice. I really don’t know how I’m going to stand living in Oregon for the rest of my life – I have told Patrick this too…between the weather and some other issues …I really think I need out after I finish school but we’ll see.

I’m just happy that I have some friends in the neighborhood to talk to about my rants and ramblings. That’s probably why I don’t vent so much on here anymore. I find myself with less time on the computer to type this all. It feels good to type it out though!

we have power - it came on around 12-1 or something too bad I had to cancel my photography shoot for the family this morning because I didn’t know if our power would be back. It’s supposed to be a nice clear day too *sighs*. We are going to reschedule for after the holidays but watch it be rainy.

Long few days and LOTS to do now that we have power. I had to cancel my cookie decorating party for the neighborhood *sighs* and Friday I had gone over to my in-laws to make all the dough up there (due to power out!) and made 3 batches of fudge, some pecan bars etc. Plus, all the stuff I had been baking all week leading up to it! We had bought everything for the party but appetizer type of stuff. I think i’m going to make little care cookie packages with red / green icing + decorating sprinkles and give them out to the families and include some of the other goodies I baked. Otherwise we’d get fat here and we’ll be gone so bleh

Anyhow ….too much to do !

Maybe another update later of our early xmas present opening at the in-laws (they wanted to do it before we left) and oh, we got a Canon Camcorder from my parents in KC..it’s SOOOO nice Maybe video footage of munchkin is in the future!

<3 heather

yes, that’s right..we’ve been without power since Thursday evening and we have no idea when it’ll be back. we got it back for about 5 minutes last night but it went back and then we noticed that there is only about 12 of our houses without power still in the neighborhood *sighs* Literally they have power in the houses behind mine, like my backdoor neighbors but NOT MINE!!! It’s cold and well supposed to be 20s this evening. It sucks! We are not a top priority to get fixed either because it seems they restored the power in the area / the downed line. The whole town had no power until 8 last night.

anyhow, i just got a call now from our neighbor i missed while upstairs at my in-laws typing…will go see if it’s them saying our power is up

<3

I took the kiddo to Patrick’s work today for a Halloween party they had and everyone was amused by his costume I know he’s not old enough to trick or treat but we got so excited to pick out his costume we had to share it with everyone! Before everyone started trick or treating we took him over to a few of the neighbors houses to see him dressed up! Then the onslaught of kids started and omgosh did we have a ton of kids. We are talking close to $50 worth of candy …… Now here’s my rants from a few different situations today ~ kids that don’t dress up and go trick or treating, kids that don’t say trick or treat but speak spanish to me, kids that come back by the house for 2nd’s or 3rds thinking we’d be fooled, when you tell kids to take a few they reach in for 3 handfuls and you proceed to say “just take a few” in your cutest voice as they continue to take more, parents that trick or treat for their own candy…wtf, parents that drive around their jacked up SUV’s blaring out spanish music back and forth on our street as their kids go house to house and lastly..kids that even though there is clearly a taped LARGE piece of paper over the doorbell button that says “please knock, baby sleeping” proceed to ring the doorbell!! Besides all of that, I LOVE seeing the kids costumes and handing out candy. We were watching last weeks Battlestar “On Demand” in between doorknockings because we were at the pumpkin carving party thing last week and Patrick was ansy to see what we missed!

Here’s our squidkid (as patrick called him today at his work) but he’s actually an Octopus!
(pics are thumbnails - so click for larger)

Oh and on the job front~ I got a call today while I was out from the City about one of the jobs and then when I got home another call from the other city job!!!! I have an interview for the one Nov. 8th and will find out tomorrow when the other will get scheduled!! Basically, I applied for 2 different city jobs, 2 different departments and types of work/job duties and they both had nasty long city applications but also had written examinations. I’m just happy to be a “candidate” so far and am hoping hoping that I can at least get an offer from one. They are sooo incredibly perfect for me. We are talking 19 hours a week and paying well, working for the city and ohhh i’d love to just work 19 hours leaving me time for kiddo!!! The job duties for both would fit me just fine and I do have experience in either, even though both are drastically different types of jobs. *crosses my fingers*

Well off to cuddle up!
Hope everyone had a safe halloween!

~heather