New Chat - Week of 1/26/2015

Oh my!  They are saying we could get up to 3 FEET of snow.  Last I heard it was a whooping 10 degrees.  Luckily we have a St Bernard pup living behind us.....I guess Finley can come to the rescue!  He's way bigger than Theo and is still less than a year old, so he's not a fragile little pup.  Just hope he has that little barrel of rum around his neck when he arrives......

Finally had my PT eval this morning for the upper trap and neck.  Will get started later in the week.

Happy birthday sunshine....Michael would have been 37 today.

Hope everyone stays safe and warm!

(((Glenda)))

Yup, they're calling for 2-3 feet of snow tonight-tomorrow here  too, with really high winds. I love the snow; the wind I can do without. We're all hunkered down and ready to see what Mother Nature brings. I left a meeting early so I could get on the road back home. I'm glad I did, because the traffic got really slow right around the regular commuting time.  I made a HUGE pot of chili tonight. My parents got half of it, and I still have a ton. It freezes well, so that's what I'll do with a lot of it. I also have the stuff to make lentil soup.

Keep warm and stay safe if you're in the way of this storm! (Tracy, I can't believe the warm temperatures you're having! Wow!)  

I hope that everyone in the storms path will keep checking in today.  We are getting only a little snow so far and the weather is saying probably only an additional couple of inches, so we'll come in under 6 inches from this "monster" storm.  But others  are getting much worse.

Thanks for mentioning chili, Kate.  I've got a batch in the freezer so that'll be a good thing to pull out for dinner.

Still lots of wind here, with snow coming down at a decent pace right now. I was about about 5:30 and it was a white out--couldn't see a thing except blowing snow and more snow!  It's hard to tell how we got because there are some really deep sections and then some bare ground because of the wind. OK, off to put some more wood on the fire.

Stay safe everyone, and check in if you get a chance.

And here in southern Minnesota, we have green grass with a few patches of snow.  An unseasonably warm spell through the end of the month.  The big problem is mud.  Driving in to the WMA yesterday, the road was a mud pit.  Drive too fast and slide into the ditch, drive to slow and lose momentum.  And of course the parking area was just slimy.  But the grass was dry with frozen ground underneath.  Should have run Sky for a couple of hours.

Obedience class last night.  13 dogs in training and 3 more belonging to the instructors.  Sky could not focus at all.  He did manage to claim several of the orange cones and allowed me a chance to demonstrate proper clean up procedures for a dog dumping over 20 ft of track.  Good thing he's cute.

A successful evening.  

He can do a good off leash heel with me when walking to the truck after a run, but he gets over loaded with dogs and people at the class.  It gets discouraging for both of us.  But I shall endeavor  to persevere.

Got the bid for new kitchen cabinets, and it looks doable.  Wife decided on a rock top, probably granite.  Son may be able to get us a discount, and we can get a good sink through him.  Some new electrical, a new vent,  a little plumbing, and I may have to go back to work. New appliances?  The ones we have are old-the oven is original to the house-60 yrs- but works well.  They all work well today.

Doug -- a 60 year old oven that still works well?!  Wow, that's proof that they don't build things like they used to.  A new oven today would never last that long!  Kitchen remodels can be expensive, that's for sure.  I'd love new countertops (our house came with tile counters, which I hate), but we have quite a bit of counter (which is good thing, usually!) and the cost to replace with granite would require winning the lottery.

Yes, dogs are very lucky they're cute.  Otherwise we would run out of patience with them far more often!  

Glad to hear you're both okay thus far, Glenda and Kate.  I watched some news this AM and it sounds like things weren't quite as awful as they expected in NYC, but horrible in Boston, where my sister is.  I'll check in with my Mom this afternoon and see how she's faring.  She's in the western part of CT, so she may be just on line of where things go from okay to terrible.

Enjoy your chili, ladies, and stay close to heavy objects so you can grab onto something if super strong gusts of winds catch you by surprise!    I would love to be there for the snow, but high winds are definitely scary.  Keep us posted!

Wisdom from e-mail for the day:

Chocolate comes from cocoa which is a tree ... that makes it a plant which means ... chocolate is  ...  Salad !!!

Enjoying a sunny day here in mid-Michigan. I think it hit temps in the mid-20s. Where did I put those flip-flops?

I hope everyone getting hammered with the monster storm stays safe.

Very saddened by the article of the woman drowning the Doberman puppy in an airport bathroom since it was too young to take on the flight. I hope there is a special place in Hades for her and others like her.

I flagged a bunch of the spam posts, as if anyone at dog.com is paying attention anymore.

Wow. tons of spam posts here. Not that it bothers me much since I don't look for anything except this thread.

Tina, I hadn't heard about the woman drowning her puppy. I can't say what I'm hoping happens to her.

Kate, I've been thinking about you and hoping you're weathering the storm safely. Glad you're ok. Stay warm and stay safe!

The weather is wonderful here. I think it's probably 80 and lots of sunshine. A few more days of this and then we get some rain and cooler temps.

Charles is on week two of radiation. He's doing well. He gets chemo once a week.  So far he hasn't had any terrible side effects. Not that it's a walk in the park but it could surely be much, much worse. As the radiation treatments continue, it's expected to take more of a toll.  Thanks for the good thoughts from everyone here and for the cards. We both appreciate them very much.

I told Tina this story earlier but thought you guys might get a laugh too. My sister's, soon to be 7 year old, granddaughter created her own invitations to a birthday party for herself at Chucky Cheese. She took them to school and handed them out to all her classmates.  Unfortunately, she failed to mention this to her parents. lol  They found out and the party has been cancelled. Cupcakes will be delivered to the classroom as consolation.  This is the same child who when asked how many cases of girl scout cookies she wanted to order to sell, declared 6000 cases should  be enough. lol

Hope everyone stays safe and  don't forget to tell the people you love that they are loved.

Just checking in on everyone out east.  Hope all is well and you are safe.  

Callie, pass the salad :)  

Jackie that is so cute about the Bday party that sounds so much like my own granddaughters, they usually team up, they are 6 & 7 and are cousins....they are very close and can come up with some really good ones.

Happy to hear Charles is doing well, hope he continues to tolerate the chemo and radiation as well as he is.

Sounds like Sky is just being social to me, lol.  Good luck with the kitchen remodel I am sure your wife is thrilled.

Be safe and take care....past my bedtime.

I've flagged several of the spam posts, but nothing seems to happen, so I give up.  This thread is about all I look for here :(

LOL Jackie that Birthday party is something I could definitely see happening.  I don't think Hannah would do it b/c its too many pieces to put together on her own, but she (and her friends) definitely don't grasp the "parents need to be involved in plans" idea.

I am glad Charles is doing OK through the chemo and radiation.  Will absolutely keep thinking about him and watching for updates.

Jackie, your grand-niece sounds like she's a budding entrepreneur.  She's got the knack for dreaming big and taking initiative to put things in place so things go the way she'd like them to go!  Pretty good qualities to have, although her parents may need to be on the alert more than the average parent.  How did they find out?  Did another parent say something about the invitations?  Imagine if no one had said anything and a bunch of kids showed up expecting a party at Chuck E. Cheese!  

I'm glad to hear that Charles is doing well with the treatments so far.  Fingers crossed that he's spared too many really nasty side effects as time goes on.  

I hope Kate checks in soon.  From what it looked like on the national news coverage, she was walloped by snow and wind in her area.  I think Glenda is a little more west of the worst part of MA's storm damage.  My sister checked in last night (she's in Boston) and said they were doing okay, just hunkered down at home.  The coverage they showed of places on the Cape was scary.  Like a winter hurricane!

Same old, same old here. Looking for one of these: 

All is good here! I got the shoveling done today--the winds cleared off the deck which was a nice surprise. Snow was 6 inches to 4 ft deep--the wind did a job in some places. I think we got somewhere between 16-20 inches, but I'm really not sure. We didn't lose power--yeah!

Sorry for all the typos in my posts above--I really need to s....l....o....w   d...o...w...n!

Callie, I love the chocolate=salad idea. I'm hanging that up in my office.

Tracy, I'm glad your sister is OK. Did your Mom get a lot of snow?

The dogs have been having zoomie fests out in the snow whenever I let them out. Poor Mozey comes in covered in mini-snow balls on her legs and feet, but she does love the snow, so go figure. (My springer used to come in like that, too.)

Jackie, I'm glad to hear Charles' radiation and chemo are going OK. A million good thoughts from here. I can only imagine the Chuck E Cheese event planning...