Weekend Recap

So this weekend was my B-Day.  I’m going to do my best to post a quick weekend recep.  On Saturday (My Actual B-Day) I ended up getting up around 7:30 8:00 and hitting up Destroy All Humans until around 10:30am when we needed to head over to the vet to pick up shadows medicine and then the weekly trip over to my parents house to make sure everything was ok and it was.  From their I headed to Golden Corral for lunch with Jess’s family to celebrate my birthday.  After that, we headed home and I hit up some more Destroy All Humans until about 2:00pm in which we head to the Swim Center in middleburg to take shadow for his normal saturday swim.  (We had Fun!!!).   When I got home I played some more Destroy All Humans until around 11:00 when Jess got home.  We then headed out for a quick bite to eat at BK and then the day was over.   YAY for an awesome birthday.  I really only wanted to game all day and just have a day when I can relax and chill.  I did enjoy taking shadow for swimming cause it is always fun!

Sunday was the party day.   The morning as taken up with some light cleaning (I say light cause I really didn’t do much besides a bathroom, vacuming the stairs, the living room, and the dining room and moving some stuff around so we could put the food out).  Jess really took care of the rest and she did a fantastic job… YAY JESS.

Around 11:00 Jess showed up after running some errands with Michael.  He had brought me a gift that they said I just had to open right now.  Upon opening it, it revealed a…. WII.   YAY!  That totally shocked me, and was awesome.  Michael and I spent the rest of the time before the party hooking up the WII and running some WII related errands like getting a points card, and picking up a game.  We also ran to two different stores looking for cake decorating frosting tips for Jess and she didn’t even end up using them.  But ohhh well.

Nick and Megan arrived first.  Megan brought her awesome Monkey Bread that was a HUGE hit.  To be honest, Nick was being an ass for a good majority of the party.  He ended up pouring beer on shadows head while he was laying on the carpet.  That really really really pissed me off.  Like WTF, what gives you the right to come into my house, and 1. even think it would be funny to pour beer on my dogs head, and 2. pour beer inside of my house, (it got on the dog and the carpet).  Like WTF.

Melissa followed up next and brought with her the newest edition to the family.  Lula Belle.  She is a 10 week old teacup Pomeranian.  I don’t have pictures but I think Mel has some on her myspace account.  Mel was pretty chill throughout the party but had to leave early cause she is getting ready for the trip to Florida. YAY Mel.

TJ and Laura followed in next, followed by AJ and Dana, and finally Zach.  I would say all in all it was a great party.  We had some Wii Super Smash brothers going which Dana, AJ, and Michael totally was killing everyone on.  AJ by far was kicking everyones butt.  Thanks goes out to Jess for putting it all together.

Finally got Shadow Pictures Up and Working

So I was finally able to move my “Shadow Pictures” from my myspace account over to rock you so I can post it on WordPress. YAY. You should see the link at the top of the page and it is called Shadow Pictures, if not you can navigate here: http://nonatheninja.wordpress.com/shadow-pictures/. I have added some of the most recent pictures of him. Just to recap when we got him he was very under weight at 7 pounds. As of last Sunday when we took him swimming, he is now an impressive 80 pounds even. YAY! I love my puppy.

I’m suppose to write about life

So lets see if I can write a quick update about life.

1. My dog just cost me $300 bucks because he got a stick stuck in his mouth and had to be sedated in order to have it removed.
2. I went to Myrtle Beach last weekend and had a great time. We are going back next year, probably gonna end up buying a time share there if shadow doesn’t eat up all my money by then.
3. Heading to Nicks this weekend for some Best Man time and to pick out tuxes. YAY! Tuxs
4. Melissa is now dating a new guy. But he kinda looks like nick… but shhhhhhh
5. I Love my Wifey
6. I might be changing jobs soon or maybe doing some part time consulting on a more frequent basis.
7. Semi – Pro the movie sucked.
8. Check this out to see a guy beat Mario 1 (The original) in 5 minutes (World Record).  http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ie4E3Bmqb5w  Please don’t bitch about it until you read the information he included with the video as why some things worked.

Thats all

Red Robin

Yay, so yesterday I was able to head out with the wifey and sister over to Red Robin. I love their burgers and I hadn’t been there in over a year.  It was nice to get away and hang out with the wifey and sister.

Today is Shadows 3rd swimming appointment.  We should be leaving here in like 2 hours or so to go and take him over to Middleburg.  Man the drive out there really really sucks.  Jess picked up his new medication on thursday.  So far he seems to be fine on it.  I think he is still trying to adjust to such a lower activity level.  I mean we can’t play or anything like that.  All he has are walks and swimming and recently he has been bailing on his walks.

I actually have the day off from work tomorrow.  YAY!. I have a meeting with a consulting client earlier in the morning but after that I’m good to go.  Then its back to work on Tuesday (no telecommute day for me this week cause of the Monday holiday).

DirecTV got installed yesterday.  I have to say that it is really different and I’m still trying to learn what channels are what.  The DVR appears to be cool and we have already decked out our shows for when to record what.  The installation was great, a little slow though as the person doing the install was training, but thats ok.  Funny thing was I called Comcast to cancel all my service and they told me I couldn’t because I had to return the box first.. Well I’m not gonna pay for two days worth of service that I’m not using so I called back a couple of hours later, got someone different and they cancelled my account fine….  As you can see a main reason I’m leaving comcast (every person you talk to you get a different answer).

The downstairs toliot over at mom and dads is running which I believe explains their high water bill.  The water had been shut off, but I don’t think my parents know about it, so I’m gonna give them a call soon and see if they want me to fix it.

I guess thats all for now.

 

Shadows VA Tech Appt

So as I’m sure most know who are reading this blog, shadow had his virginia tech appointment thursday in order to get evaluated for his hip displaysia.  After the drive of 4 hours (which he did really well in the car) we were able to see a Vet and get his results.

It appears that he is going to require surgury in both his rear hips.  The left hip being the worse of the two, and he is also going to require surgury on his front left shoulder.  In his front left shoulder he apparently has OCD.

We are looking at two possible surgury options.  An FHO which basically removes part of the hip bone socket as well as part of the joint and uses the healing process to form scar tissue that makes a false joint.  This surgury costs around $1500.  The recovery time is around 8 – 12 weeks on this option, however he would be encourage to do movement and such so he would not be confined.

The second option is a total hip replacement.  This requires them to make the joint and such.  The main risk with this surgury is the fact that if the false joint and such rolls out of place or pops out, you’ll need to then get the FHO.  The total hip replacement cots $3500.  Btw that is only for 1 hip.  The recovery time for this surgury is 8 – 12 weeks of him being completly confined.  When I say completly, I mean it, because he would literally live in his crate except when he uses the bathroom in order to minimize his movement and ensure he heals properly.

In his shoulder, we only have 1 surgury option which would be for them to cut away the cartilidge causing the problem and that runs around $1500.  I’m not sure of the recovery time for this surgury.

In all of these options he will also need physical therapy to help build up his muscles.  The vet said that swimming him would be the best option because it doesn’t put any type of pressure on his leg and hip and requires that he use them all in order to swim.  Swimming him is costing $25 per 30 min swim session and a 1 hour drive out to Middleburg.  We are currently using the “Animal Swim Center“  He had his first lesson yesterday and it went really really well.  In addition to the swimming we are going to be seeing a Doggy Rehabilitation specialist ($85 every 2 weeks) who is going to be able to give us exercises and such at home to do as well as evaluate our progress.

So least to say that I love my doggy .  We are looking at sometime in april to have his Total Hip Replacement done.  YAY

Its a Miracle

WOW.. I cannot believe my eyes… I actually just experienced my first meeting at work in which something actually got done that was productive.  I mean don’t get me wrong, we have meetings all the time, but I never walk out of there feeling like something productive got done.  This time I did .

Nothing really new happening.  My foot has been hurting me recently and that has kinda sucked, cause its hard to drive and walk when your right foot is hurting.  Not sure why it is hurting, but I figure if it still hurts in like a week, I’ll make an appointment to see a doctor.

Another miracle happened last night.  Shadow was 100% calm.  What made him so calm…. No MOM it wasn’t Valium…. It was exercise… Cherokee (Jess’s Parents Dog) came over and played for like a couple of hours.  Its hard to believe that all this time, maybe all he needed was some hella hella exercise…  The down side of Cherokee coming over is it really really really hurt his beg leg, to where he could bearly walk anyways… So maybe he wasn’t tired, but just really unable to move much because of his back leg… I don’t know.

Jess started school this week.  You’d have to ask her how it is going cause I can’t speak for her.

Not much is going on this weekend.  I believe Jess is heading out with Dana for some wedding expo stuff on sunday which leaves me with the day by myself.  Not sure if AJ is gonna want to game the entire day but he might.  Anyone that wants to hang out feel free to let me know now so I can plan.

So I ran through the taxes via Turbo Tax on the internet today.  Should be getting something back, but we’ll just have to wait and see when the final W-2’s hit the mailbox.  I did some estimates off of my last pay stubs.   I’m thinking that the day I get my last W-2 (Just waiting for my current employer to get there shit together) that I’m gonna head over to HR Block and see if they can help find me all these deductions I keep hearing about on the internet.  Who knows, maybe I’ll get some more…..  I wonder if they do something that if you don’t like the refund or got a bigger one some place else they will give you the different or something… If anyone knows or has comments about HR Block, please post comments.

Well I guess thats all for now.  Lunch break is over, and its back to work.  I have to say that this week has been the first week in which I have actually kept busy at work…  Next week will suck cause I’ll be in DC on wednesday… Man I hate dc… and the metro, and everything.

Shadow and the Snip Snip

So we finally took shadow yesterday to get the snip snip done. Everything went well and he is at home recovering, however we did have the doctor take some extra X-Rays because he has been limping pretty badly recently.

Upon investigation of the X-Rays the doctor found out that shadow has Stage 4 Dysplasia. You can find some nice info here: http://www.thepetcenter.com/xra/hd.html

Looks like we are going to need to do a hip replacement for his left side, and maybe a hip replacement for his right side (He has Stage 2 in his right side). Either way I do love him, and we’ll be taking donations anytime you want to contribute to the Save Shadow fund .

Other then that, he is recovering from the snip snip that he had done yesterday, he is resting at home, and looking forward to some turkey tomorrow for dinner.

The Weekend

Man the weekend was over way too soon. Jess and I are trying a new training technique on shadow that seems to have some benefits. Check it out at: http://www.k9deb.com/nilif.htm

Nothing really going on last weekend except for Mel’s b-day. I think she had a good time, and it was nice to see the entire family agian. I got some work done on the house Saturday only to end up destroying a door. So instead of getting all the stuff I planned to get done, I ended up only having the place clean…. Still a mountain in itself when you really go through and clean a place… man it takes time.

Next weekend I hope to tackle the yard, maybe get some doors up, and start organizing the basement so we can begin to have it be functional ya know?

I’m still recovering from being sick, and thanks to mom I got some new medicine that I should finish out this week and be done with it. I’m feeling pretty good but to be honest, it just takes alot out of me and is causing me ot be really tired at the end of the day and sleep in, during the morning, so shadow has been losing out on his walks each morning. I really hope to get back into taking him for a walk, and getting up at 6:30 / 7 each morning. Maybe even eating breakfast in the morning and making my lunch for work… .Ohhhh ahhh..

Thats all for now. cya

Sleep need Sleep

So this whole barking in the middle of the night, and me having to get up and let him out isn’t that bad. I prefer tha instead of having to clear out the crate he is in from all the shit and stuff. The downside is two fold though. 1 I have to wake up and stumble downstairs with him and such, so by the time I go back to bed, I’m wide awake. 2 he doesn’t want to go right back to sleep and therefore decides to bark and cry for what seems like forever before seattling down. Which is causing me to lose lots of sleep.

You know anything that bites…. literally is him. he wants to bite everything, and when i say everything I mean everything… Your nose, your hands, your shoes, your furniture, EVERYTHING.

But I guess all of that comes along with getting a puppy instead of a fully trained dog and such. I wouldn’t trade him for the world and I still love him, its just hard a times. Gotta remember there is only a couple more weeks of this before he is potty trained, and roaming the house at night looking for people trying to break into my house so he can Chew/Bite/Whatever them.