We had fun!

Marley wants everyone to know how much fun she had at Tanner Park yesterday. We went with our TipTail friend and got to make some new friends from Resqtails too. Marley chased and played with muffit and was a super happy girl. We were happy to have Paul and Leon join us too!! I didn't get many good pics. It's hard to get good pics of dogs that are moving. But here are a few:


Some of our new sheltie friends:
Leon is such a happy boy!!

Twist and Zoe want treats!!!

The Flyball Box is fun!!

Last Night we got together with our Friends Chase, Muffit, and Cynthia to do some work on the flyball box. They came to our house this time and it's great that they did. I cleaned all the walnuts but more fell during the day yesterday so we found a small patch of grass that was mostly clean of walnuts to work on.

I stole this pic of Muffit because I think he is so cute. I hope my friend doesn't care! He's a typical frantic border collie who at 5 years old had had no training. This is pretty normal for a border collie who doesn't get to work. Or at least that's been my experience. That's why it so important that people that get this breed - understand their need for work and mental stimulation.

All the new sights and sounds at our house were very distracting for him. I'm really glad he came over there though because he did really well. He had to take a few minutes to focus then go off and check things out. He also did some VERY nice box turns when he was there.

Dylan, Chase, and even Marley got to do some box work too! I was most impressed with Spicey Love Muffit though! He is coming along so well and I hope they know they are invited to come back and use my distracting yard anytime they want too!!

Are they tennis balls? Or Walnuts?

I have a huge walnut tree in my backyard. It makes for a decent shade tree but it also is a huge pain when it comes time to clean the yard of leaves and walnuts. It

drips sticky stuff all summer and so anything in the yard tends to be sticky. It drops literally thousands of walnuts in the fall. Luckily it only produces nuts every other year.

I tried to clean some of the walnuts up this evening. They were falling even as I as picking them up! It seems impossible to pick up all the crappy walnuts. I was worried that they were going to hit me in the head and knock me out!

Marley, however, keeps me quite entertained. She seems to believe that whenever a walnut falls - it may be a tennis ball. As soon as she hears one fall - she runs over and pounces on it. She seems disappointed to find out that it's simply another walnut. There's already a thousand on the grass (well maybe 500 now that I did some work out there). It must really be disappointing to her that it's not actually raining tennis balls. Dylan is of course, just scared of the walnuts when they fall. He really is afraid of anything that moves!

When I first bought this house, there were 5000 walnuts. It looked like they hadn't been cleaned up in years. Now that I am through my first 2 years of owning this place, I realize that the walnut tree is just so big that it drops 5000 walnuts in the fall. I have the joy of getting down on my hands and knees to try to clean them up. They get buried in the lawn so I have to literally pat it down to make sure they are all picked up. Of course, there are already more falling so I am not sure what good all this work does. I'll have to do it again next week and the week after that. Oh and I only got about a 1/4 of the yard done anyway. I hope that 1/4 stays somewhat clean so we can do some box work out there tomorrow. We are expecting some of our friends from Tip Tail to come and do some training tomorrow evening!

Sometimes I miss being a renter. I never realized how much work it was to own a house. Now I own two and man do I hate doing yardwork. Maybe next year I will be able to afford to hire someone to do it. That's probably wishful thinking though!

My blog is moving.

My blog is moving...It will take a few days but it will soon be My Spoiled Mutts. Thanks so much to my friend Cynthia for helping set it up!! I'm excited to have my own site soon! Keep watching! I may still post on this blog until the other is up and running.

The nicest guy...

I had a rough morning today. I woke up with miserable allergies that didn't go away until I got to work. When I arrived here, I realized I left my lunch and dinner sitting on the kitchen counter. I have to work a long day on Mondays I pack two meals with me. Money is tight so I didn't want to go out to eat. I also didn't want my dogs to think it was okay to feast on my roasted food.

To make matters worse, I lost a bunch of data on my computer and was freaking out all morning. Stuff that could totally screw up my work life for a good couple of weeks until I restored it all.

Paul was going to pick D&M up for the day since I have to work both jobs. I asked him to stick my lunch in the fridge so at least it wouldn't be ruined. He was nice enough to bring it across town to me at work! And he brought my princess Marley with him (and Sage and Leon too). So I got lunch, I got to see Paul, and got some loves from the puppies! It was so incredibly nice of him to drive so far. He brought the dogs so he could walk them at the Dimple Dell Gulch that's not too far from my work here.

Ohhh and when I got back from visiting with Paul and the dogs, someone had restored all my lost data. All in all, the day has gotten a lot better than the way it started. I'm so lucky to have met such a nice guy who is willing to go out of his way to help me - even without being asked.

Eating Healthy

I've been trying, when possible, to make some healthy meals. I'm a horrible cook and I usually end up eating something that doesn't taste very good as a result of my attempt to cook something healthy.

I love veggies and I was a vegetarian until about a year and a half ago. So veggies are a good easy and healthy thing for me to eat. I mostly eat them raw because I don't know how to cook them.

I got this recipe from Chris but I improvised. I didn't add any peppers and I added portabello mushrooms and yellow squash and carrots and tomatoes. Oh and some whole garlic cloves too. The recipe called for salt and pepper but I don't like pepper much and I am trying to cut down on sodium so I used garlic powder instead. My house stinks but it tasted yummy so it's worth it.

Oh, and D&M always eat healthy. It's sooo easy for me to deny them the yummy treats that people offer. Yet I can't turn them down when yummy treats are offered to me. I wish someone made all my decisions on what I could eat. It really isn't difficult to keep a dog at a decent weight if you just make wise choices for them. Healthy food and small but healthful treats for training and reward is all it really takes. Exercise is good too!!

I really love raw feeding these two. It's good for them and my vet insists on it. They get some healthy kibble too since I work for a pet food company. They usually eat it in the morning for breakfast though. It's about time I start feeding some chicken now that it is cooling down. That will be nice since it's a bit cheaper than beef. My friend got some raw green tripe and she said her dogs love it. I may have to buy some one of these days but I can't handle feeding it.

Glad we all had a healthy and yummy dinner. Tomorrow is a weigh in day and I haven't had a great week so hopefully the low calorie dinner tonight will help a bit.

Relaxation Time

Dylan and I attended a Relaxation class yesterday at Four Legged Scholars yesterday. It was a really interesting course that talked about using Tie Downs to teach a dog to relax. Johanna also did a guided meditation with the people and their dogs!

During our guided meditation Dylan told me that he would like to play more flyball and that he wants me to pay more attention to him when we are just hanging around at home. He also would like me to get the living room cleaned so that we have more space to play in there.

So today I am trying to get motivated to clean. Well, I was working on paying bills etc, but now I am procrastinating by blogging. I really hate how messy my house is but I also hate cleaning!!

Icky Rash!!!

I think I may have had an allergic reaction to something I ate last night. When I got home from survivor night; I had been itching for a couple of hours. I noticed that I had red bumps all over my skin.

I don't think it was the dogs. The rash was mostly covered by clothing. I did have a dog in my lap for a while but I don't usually get a rash from dog allergies (yes I am allergic to my own babies)!

I didn't eat anything really abnormal last night. I did have some yummy fruit salad, Lasagna, Garlic Bread, and homemade Hummus. There were plums in the fruit salad and I haven't really eaten many plums in the past. I also wonder if there might have been something in the hummus?

I've also been taking a Pycnogenol Supplement to see if it will help with my allergies. I have only been taking it a few days now so I wonder if it could be an allergic reaction to that too.

I took a benadryl late last night. Man did that make it hard to get up this morning! I woke up and still had a rash everywhere. I am sitting here at work and trying not to scratch it. Whatever it is, I hope it goes away soon!!

Survivor is back!

My friends and I have been getting together to watch Survivor for years now. At first, I thought it kind of dorky. I'm not a big TV watcher and getting together for a reality show seemed a bit odd. But over the years I have come to appreciate the show and of course, the good company.

My friend has Tivo so we spend a lot of time pausing and chatting. We talk lots about dogs because he's a dog lover too. Sometimes D&M get to come with me but for the most part I leave them home. Dylan gets a little frustrated with so many dogs around and we have to keep my two baby gated into the TV room because my friend has a Blue and Gold Macaw that I can't trust them around.

Tonight the Survivor Season starts! We are getting together as usual but having good yummy homemade lasagna! I've been eating healthy all week so I can eat some lasagna tonight!! Should be lots of fun!! I enjoy having a free activity that encourages my friends and I to get together. When the survivor season ends, I feel like I don't see them enough because I can't afford to call them up and invite them to go out somewhere!!

We hate the bath!

Dylan despises the bathtub! He won't even come into the bathroom if I am in there getting ready! Marley is getting more and more used to it since

she has to have a bath every 2 weeks before her therapy visit. Last night was bath night and Dylan hasn't had one in a few months so I decided he needed one too. He was sure unhappy about it!

Marley has learned to do 2 shakes behind the shower curtain before she gets out. She's a pretty good girl but I can't get Dylan to shake and towel drying a dog doesn't really work well! So as soon as he jumped out of the tub he was shaking and flinging water everywhere!

I'm allergic to dogs oddly enough so having wet dog smell all over my tiny house isn't the best plan. We survived though and I even slept next to two damp dogs. Oh the joys of dog ownership! I can't bear to kick them out of my bed for the night and I didn't have time to bathe them early enough that they would actually dry before bedtime!

At least they are clean! I love soft clean dogs!!! Marley will have her therapy visit tonight and she will be all clean for the people to pet her! Dylan will smell better and will be more fun to cuddle with. That only usually lasts a couple of days around my house because I am sure the two of them will be out splashing in mud and water sometime in the very near future! Guess that it's just part of living with a two dogs!

Chasin Lizards is lots of fun!

We took the dogs out to the desert today to give them a chance to get out and run. This is Dylan's favorite place because he gets to run free! I try to call him minimally here because it's flat and I can see him and he loves so much to go out and explore. He does quite well and checks in on his own so I don't call him unless I have too!

Dylan wears an orange vest and his Muttlucks Booties. He blends in so well with the landscape that this orange vest helps make him much more visible. He tends to wear out his front pads on this dry terrain so the muttlucks help prevent that issue. They seem to stay on well but they get turned around so I have to stop him from time to time for an adjustment. My vet says he wouldn't have so many issues with his pads if his nails weren't so dang long. I really need to get working on the dremel but I've found it is very difficult for me to work on this alone. I think it would be easier if there were someone to sit there and feed him!!


There were lots and lots of lizards today and the dogs had the time of their life. Dylan especially loves to chase the lizards. The funny thing is, the lizards will run through the sagebrush and keep on going but the dogs seem to think they are hiding in the bushes. By the time the dogs realize they aren't there; the lizards are long gone!!

Paul and Leon just seem to belong together. Leon rarely leaves his side unless he sees a bunny or a squirrel!
Three tired dogs came home and took naps. I really need to get Dylan one of this round dog beds. He loves this one that is over at Paul's house!

And who couldn't love this boy? I had to post this last pic that I took after Dylan woke up!! Isn't he the cutest english pointer you have ever seen?

It's official! Marley is the cutest dog!

We went to the Salem Pet Fair today. Marley won the contest for the cutest dog. I alwasy knew she was the cutest girl!

I actually wasn't going to enter but I bought these cute bows for her hair right as the contest was starting. So we decided to run down and enter the contest because she looked SO darling with her bows in! Guess the bows really did make her the cutest!

She also won "Most Obedient!" It's kind of a funny title since I have not really done much obedience work with her. The contest was easy though - Sit, Stay, and Come. Then Marley and our friend Tonks had to do a roll over for a tie breaker. Pretty easy obedience and Marley LOVES to Roll over!!

Marley also ran in the flyball demo! I was so impressed with her! It's been about a year since she ran with a team and she did SO great! I actually let her play at practice 2 weeks ago just for the fun of it. She did great! Dylan's been limping so I didn't take him. Marley ran in his place! She completed all her runs after a messy warm up. She dropped the ball early once but other than that her runs were pretty good! She even did her swimmer's turn just like she is supposed too!! I'm amazed that after a year she could just go out there and do it like she'd been practicing all along!

It was a fun day at the Salem Pet Fair! We had fun with Cynthia, Chase, and Tatum! We got to ride down in the nice new van!!

YAY for Flyball!

Time for another Flyball Demo!! I can't wait! I'm not sure if Dylan will be able to run or not but I am just happy to get to go out and do a demo with my team! It's always a good time!

I'm lucky my friend Cyn got a new van! She's going to let me ride down to Salem, UT with her! I hate driving and this way we can save some money on gas and do our part to help the environment!

Marley will get to go too. If there are any contests, I may enter her! She won the roll over race at the last event we went too! She's a fast roller!!

We will get to hang out with Tatum, Chase, and Muffit!! YIPEE!!! I can't wait for tomorrow!

The New Tenant!

My new tenant arrived yesterday from NM. He seems pretty nice and really likes his cats. I foresee him spending a lot of time on the big front porch! He was sitting out there when I got home last night.

The house already smells a bit like cats. It's just his stuff that was moved in. I'm a bit nervous the place might smell like cats after he moves out but hopefully a good cleaning and cleaning some carpets will help.

He likes to cook and to garden. I suspect he might stay on top of me to keep the front yard looking a bit nicer. It's probably good though. I'm super lazy about yard work and I hate doing it. I kind of need to be obligated to get it done to keep me motivated.

He's promised to bring me some chocolate from his work. Sounds like a bad plan huh? Guess it's supposed to be healthy chocolate that they sell at whole foods.

We got another room painted and now we have 1 more to go! I added the total for all hours put into painting and getting that house ready. So far we have spent 66 hours, taping, cleaning, patching walls, and painting. That's a lot of time! I've put in 26 of those myself but I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family that have been willing to come help!! Pics to come soon!

21 hours of painting!

I spent 5 hours Wednesday and 16 hours yesterday painting in the rental! My 21 hours combined with the many hours of my friends and family has made it possible to clean and tape and paint 2 bedrooms, the kitchen, and the bathroom! We are over half way done!!

I have some painting pics to post but I haven't had time to upload them to the computer!

This old house has sooo much molding! Big 10 inch molding around the floor and molding around all the doors and the ceiling in some rooms. I'm getting really good at using the paint brush!

My Dad, Brother in law, Sister, and friend Dia came and we taped and cleaned on Tuesday Night. We also finished painting the small bedroom.

Paul came yesterday morning after working all night and helped patch the millions of holes in the walls and then helped me paint the other bedroom. This wonderful man stayed up for like 23 hours straight to help me paint yesterday!

Thanks to my good friend's Andrea and Ross we finished up the kitchen and bath at 1 AM last night. Andrea came early and helped me clean and tape and get started painting! Ross stayed until 1 AM and painted all the hard corners and crap. I have video of him shakin his booty on top of the refrigerator!!

Now we just have the two living rooms. They have tons of molding around the windows and doors and on the walls. I still have paint in my hair and on my skin after my shower to get to work this morning. I didn't sleep well and woke up late!

I'll have my Dad and Paul to help me again tonight and my tenant will be moving into the bedrooms and the kitchen today. We need to hang blinds tonight and clean up the drop cloths and tape from the kitchen and bath so he has space to live the next few days while we finish the rest of the house.

I'm hoping that tomorrow night will be the last night! I am SOOO very tired!! I just want to go back to bed right now!

D&M have been so neglected the last few days. They are lucky to have Paul who is taking them out this morning for me. I just haven't had much time for anything more than food, water, and potty breaks.

Taking it off together Tuesday!

Another week of reporting a loss! I'm happy it worked out that way because I was getting worried. I really wanted to stop eating fast food but I had it a few times last week! I also went to brunch on the weekend at the Little America buffet. It's so yummy and I ate way too much but I tried to keep it to a really light dinner that night to make up for my over indulgence in the morning.

I hope to lose at least 1.6 lbs this next week. That will put me at 30 lbs lost! Yippee!! It's gonna be tough though because I'll be working on the rental and won't want to take much time to cook. Plus I will want to provide food for my friends and family that are helping. I can't think of anything but Pizza that is inexpensive and can easily feed 4 or 5 people! I was thinking though that maybe subway sandwiches would be good? They have those new $5.00 foot longs.....So for 15-20 I could feed a bunch of people. That's a little less greasy! At least all the working and painting should burn off some of the extra calories!!

Here are this week's results:


The names of this week's "losers" were dropped into a coffee cup and this week's WINNER is Dette!

And check it out! We had an over all loss again this week! Congrats to Grace for being this week's biggest loser of 3.8 pounds!! Be sure to cruise over to her blog and congratulate her!

Chris - 1 LOSS
Tammy - 0.5 GAIN
Life With Hashi-Thyroid Blog - no report
Grace - 3.8 LOSS
Leigh - 0.5 LOSS
Clara - No Change
Dette - 1.5 LOSS
Julie - No Change
Cheryl - No Change
Audrey - no report
Christy - 1.4 LOSS
Tina - 0.5 GAIN
Danielle - No Change
Jessie - 3 GAIN
Steph - no report

This week's total - 4.2 LOSS!

A new belt!

I finally invested in a belt. I decided it's an absolute necessity. After loosing 28.4 lbs now, my pants are all way too big. I don't want to go buy new ones because I am working to lose even more. So I would rather put off spending a bunch of money on new clothes for as long as possible.

Saturday, I was working and running and lost my pants. Literally, I caught them when they were about mid thigh! As embarrassing as it was, it's nice to know that things are getting too big! I just hope no one saw me! But it's made it very clear that a belt is now a necessity!! I hate wearing one but I don't have a choice. It's a new belt or at least a few new pairs of pants!

So I finally went and bought one this weekend! It's reversible so I have a black belt and a brown belt all in one. I should be able to wear it with just about anything. Hopefully it will keep my pants on for a while! I have a feeling I will be asking for new clothes for Christmas!!

Jon Butler Trio and G Love and Special Sauce!

My friend Andrea and I were going to hike up in the hills above Red Butte Gardens and listen to the Jon Butler Trio (JBT) and G Love show last night. We planned on going to listen to the show because we didn't want to pay for tickets (plus the show was SOLD OUT). Marley was going to join us for the show! We've done this for a few Red Butte shows in the past because you can hear the music great in the great scenery and red rocks that are up above the gardens.

We were chatting and making plans when Andrea got a call from her boss. She hopped on the call waiting and came back to ask if I would mind leaving Marley home! She got free VIP tickets from work. Marley girl had to stay home but I didn't feel so bad. I would have felt badly leaving Dylan home alone anyway (there are too many off leash dogs on concert nights for him to go up there). We hurried to get ready because the show started about 45 minutes after she got the call. We still had to go pick up the tickets and try to get up there before JBT started. Andrea really wanted to see them but I had never really heard of them before. G Love is pretty good though and I have seen them before so I knew it would be a great show!

Our VIP tickets ended up being in a seated section. We were front and center of the VIP and it was GREAT!! The people around us weren't really getting into the show much though. I had friends that were sitting in GA not too far away so by the time G Love was playing we opted to go down so we could hang and dance with some friends.

I must say that Jon Butler Trio blew me away (as well as some of my friends who hadn't heard of them!) I should have known that Andrea has great taste in music! They were really amazing and I will definitely be looking to get some of their albums when things calm down and I can afford them. I even went online when I got home to see if I could download some free live shows from some of the free sites I know of! Truly amazing group for sure and the highlight of the night. I'd pay to see them as a headliner any day!!

We really love to see GOOD live music! I haven't made it out to many shows this year but the three I saw were really great ones (even Bob Dylan in the pouring rain was the highlight of my summer)! I am so glad Andrea scored free tickets at the last minute!! It was well worth leaving my girl home for the evening to get to see the show and hang with some good friends.

Getting Ready!

I'm getting ready for a very busy week! Starting tomorrow I will be working at the Super Pet Adoption all weekend. At least I am working and not volunteering. So I will have a good sized paycheck as a result. Then next week I will be painting starting Monday when my tenant moves out. Painting every night next week with my new tenant moving in on Thursday.

I am starting to get nervous that the place won't be clean enough on move out day. This has happened pretty much every time in the past. I don't mind keeping some deposit money in exchange for doing a bit of cleaning but I just don't have the time next week! I will need to be painting.

I am so lucky to have some wonderful friends and family who are going to help! I have friends and family scheduled to come almost every night next week. I hope they show up because I am going to need all the help I can get!!

The tire saga continues....

I went to swap out my tires with the ones my parents had. When I called a couple weeks back they told me it would work just fine but might look a bit funny. On my old car, I really don't care much anymore what it looks like. It's been hit in the parking lot at least 5 times. It's got a bunch of dents and dings.

The tire salesman yesterday gave me an earful about how the car was going to be all messed up if we put the smaller tires on my car. It would mess up suspension, mileage, and make for a really bumpy ride. Blah Blah blah I wasn't sure if he was just trying to sell me tires or if he was being truthful. So I went to a second tire store. My dad said it was better to get my second opinion from an independently owned shop rather than a national chain. So I drove around until I found one. I swear it had to be the most ghetto tire store in all of Salt Lake City. The man who came to check out my tires spoke very little English but managed to get the point across that the tires won't work right on my car. I guess getting 4 almost brand new tires for free was a bit wishful thinking.

I had to go back to the original store I was at and just buy two new tires!! I hate spending so much money on them!!

To make matters worse, the car is still rubbing on the tire. My Dad couldn't fix it but he said the damage was probably more than $1000.00 so it's worth filing a claim with the insurance company. Once again another financial set back. I am going to get an estimate and depending on the price I may end up paying the deductible to have it all fixed up. If I do, that means no trip to NY for Christmas and definitely no Flyball tournaments for the rest of this year.

I'm not sure how other people on single income's seem to do so well to travel with their dogs so much. I don't want to fly to Europe or go to Mexico. I want to take a 6 hour road trip to a weekend Flyball tournament. For some reason life seems to be working against that goal this year. I know Marley is a big expense but other dog people have expensive broken dogs too. I guess I will just keep telling myself that everyone else is using credit cards (even though that may not be true) and that I am still refusing to use credit cards if at all possible. Even if it means my dog gets to play less Flyball and I get to spend less time playing too.