Of Dogs and Snakes

Earlier this week, Rob informed me that our neighbor's dog was bitten by a cottonmouth water moccasin snake and died. The dog was bitten in his back yard. Next to our back yard. Which means the snake was practically IN OUR BACK YARD!

Oh yeah and by the way, Rob has been finding snake skins in our yard.

And (unbeknownst to me) he has seen alive snakes in our yard too!

Not cool. 

Now I'm not going to lie. I didn't really like the dog next door. It barked All. The. Time. Come to think of it, it has been quieter than normal lately...Sorry. That was mean. I guess if i had to pick between the dog and a snake, I'd pick the dog. But just barely. 

Anyway, back to the snake... Needless to say, I'm not venturing out into our yard until winter.

Friends and Funny Pictures

This is my friend Tory. She's Harper's buddy. She also took most of the next few pictures.

Tory does not have 3 legs. However, she is easily suckered into reading Harper books.

Harper has half and half hair. The front half is pin straight like mine and the back half is curly like Rob's. Genetics is a funny thing. You can really see the different types of hair in her pig tails. The hair on top is straight, while the hair on the bottom is in a ringlet.

This is my friend Katie. She's Harper's buddy too.

She has a dog named Scout. Harper likes to tell Scout what to do.

It's tough love.

Katie accidentally took this picture. She hit the button right as Harper started coughing. Actually, coughing isn't the correct term for it. Sometimes, she swallows wrong or something and makes this horrible noise like she's going to projectile hurl all over everything. It's startling the first time you hear it. After that, it's just plain funny. (Note, she was not choking or in any danger. That would not be funny.)

This kid is a nut.

And I totally love every bit of her.

Man Vs. Dog

Rob is loving the police academy. Here is a video of him squaring off against a police dog.

I had something else in mind for today, but I just got some bad news and what I planned to write about just seems silly now. My friend, Barbara, had to put one of her sweet dogs to sleep this morning. Barbara loves her dogs and I am sure that she would appreciate our prayers today. 

Barbara, I am really sorry for your loss. It takes a very special person to take care of dogs that other people found too difficult to take care of. I'm glad that we got to meet Gertie. Her gentle personality is a reflection of the love and kindness that you showed her. 

Daffodils and Dogs

Yesterday, Harper discovered daffodils and large dogs courtesy of our good friend Barbara. 

Inspecting the daffodils that she accidently trampled...

Harper found a small stick and began to cross-pollinate the flowers. 

Ahhh...my little botanist. 

There were lots of smiles

and lots of scrunched up nose laughs.

Harper did really well with Barbara's dogs - probably because Gertie, Rufus, and Gus are the most gentle, easy-going labs ever!

Here's Harper and Gertie

This was by far Harper's favorite part of the visit!

Thanks Barbara for sharing your pups and flowers with us. 

Monday Morning Laugh

I was going to post something else this morning. Then I saw this video and almost did a spit take all over my computer. 

Double Trouble

Let me tell you about the dogs we used to have. A couple of weeks after Rob and I got married, we decided that it would be a great idea for us to get a dog. He wanted a big dog and I always thought that Weimaraners were beautiful, so it was a pretty easy decision on what type of dog to get. We found a breeder and went out to his farm to visit the puppies (visit being the operative word). That night, we came home with two adorable little puppies. Why did we come home with any dogs, let alone 2, you may be wondering? Well, when we got there 1. the puppies were adorable (there was no way that we were leaving without one) and 2. I liked the girl puppy and Rob liked the boy puppy, so we got both. Great decision making. Anyway... we brought them home and they were wonderful. They were cute, calm, and well behaved (we didn't know it at the time, but they were calm and well behaved because they were sick - full of worms.) 

As most puppies tend to do, our puppies started to grow. And as they grew in size, their energy reserves grew as well. We did our best to tire them out. We walked them. We took them to the dog park. We encouraged them to wear each other out in the back yard. They were good natured dogs. 

At that time, Rob and I were working a lot. Our dogs spent long hours in their crates. Even though we tried to exercise them, it wasn't an ideal situation. In addition, by this time it was late fall. Our back yard was a mud pit. Every time the dogs went outside, they brought half of the yard back in the house with them. We were fighting a losing battle to keep our house clean. We had dirt and hair everywhere. I think that the air quality in the house was so bad that our house plants stopped growing. In addition, our sweet cat, Sage, was totally traumatized by the whole thing. I'm pretty sure that the only time she ventured down stairs was when the dogs were outside. 

It finally came to a point where I just couldn't take it any more. The dogs weren't living the kind of life that they should have been living and Rob and I were constantly bickering about the state of the house. The solution? We needed to find the dogs a new home. We called the breeder that we got them from. He said that he would be happy to take them back (long story short, he just got a divorce and his ex-wife took all of the family pets). Problem solved. The dogs would be able to live happily on a farm where they belonged. 

While I came to resent the dogs more than I liked them (I still have to be careful not to swear when I talk about them), Rob was really attached to them. It was difficult for him to let them go. Some day we'll probably have to get another dog. Rob is already plotting how he and Harper can gang up on me. Hopefully we will make better choices next time. Until that time comes, Sage and I will stick to our guns. 

I Hate the Dentist

I hate the dentist - or should I say, I hate what the dentist told me this morning. Let me preface this by saying that I have always had (what I thought to be) good teeth. I'm 28 years old and have never had a cavity - which is very surprising considering the copious amounts of candy I eat. My teeth are straight (after only 8 months worth of braces in 4th grade). Even my wisdom teeth are small, straight, still in my mouth, and don't hurt (we'll get to them in a minute). So... imagine my surprise this morning when I went to the dentist and he told me that:

 

1. The amount of ware on my teeth do to grinding them is equivalent to what he would expect to see in a 50-60 year old patient.

2. Because I grind my teeth and have worn them down (especially the back molars), I will need to have one root canal and crown immediately and I can expect to need 3-4 more crowns in the future.

3. My wisdom teeth are infected and the infection is spreading to the neighboring teeth (what???).

4. My wisdom teeth should be removed asap and I should get injections of antibiotic into the neighboring teeth to kill any residual infection.

Awesome. 

I know that many of you are thinking that you have had one or more of the above conditions and that it's really no big deal. This is of no real comfort to me. I am afraid. I am afraid of the pain that I may experience. I am afraid of being put under anesthesia. This totally stinks. And to top it all off, I almost burst into tears (at work) today after reading Ryan's post on his blog for today - and I don't even like dogs!

Bottom line - I think I'm going to get a second opinion. So if any of you know a good dentist in Nashville, please let me know.