Walkin the dog....

You see this? Corbin and Roxy? This is what they do, actually it's what they are. Boxers are known for their high energy level. Little dogs are known for their high energy levels. My dogs don't like to be stereotyped so the buck the system. And sleep. They are like myself, we believe sleeping is an Olympic sport and if there was a gold medal no one would be able to win it out from under us. Given our druthers we'd stay home and sleep. Forever. Why? Because it feels good and woe be the person to wake me when I do not want to be woken. The hubby and kid both know better, mommy is best left alone to wake when she damn well feels like waking.

The dogs? They get that way sometimes too. But mostly really they just get up for food. Given their druthers they'd hop up on the couch, sleep, drool, and then have food served to them on the couch. NO, we are not that liberal a household. They do have their own internal clocks though. 5-6 pm is their normal dinner time and they will start letting you know that the time is coming. At around 3:30 pm. Annoying brats too might I add. Jaynie is the worst, he whines. Like the world is going to end and no one loves him, etc, etc. It's long, drawn out, and dramatic as Hamlet.

Don't get me wrong, the boy likes his sleep too. He just prefers it in our bed. Spoiled? NEVER!



So as for their energy levels, well, Jaynie is the only one that really has one. The other two like things such as walks but only for like 3 blocks. Roxy has some hip issues that we have her treated for (acupuncture) and Corbin is genetically indisposed to any sort of activity whatsoever. Actually most Frenchies are, they can't breathe through the face that we've bred them too and to add insult to injury many times they have hip issues too. In Corbin's case his right hip socket doesn't fit together well. Every 3rd step or so he hops with his right rear leg in the air until it pops back into socket. It doesn't cause him any pain (yet) but it doesn't make for a dog that is going for any log ass walks either. Even if he could breathe. Which he can't. Seriously.

So Jaynie it is. He's a long legged active bugger, runs like a gazelle actually. I try and take him for a mile and a half every single night. Does it happen every night? No but if I try it happens at least 5 nights a week, sometimes 7. I don't run, shin splints are something that I've always had and they hurt. He's good walking though and we do hills so he gets a good bit of exercise. Which is good for his looney tendencies. Like most active dogs he tends to be more even keeled as long as I walk him regularly. And oh yes he reminds me every night around 8pm that we are due to walk (we go out at 9 so he starts reminders early). I started this at least 6 months ago if not longer. I can't actually remember. I slacked off a bit this last month. I initially started our late night walks because I wanted to lose some weight. A mile and a half at night every night, you'd think it'd do something with the weight but no. Not a thing. I was disappointed with the results so I started slaking off.

This week I'm trying round 2 of the weight loss program. It's not my diet, I was born and raised in So Cal, I know how to eat right and with small portions. I had my thyroid checked and my lipid levels done and they were all fine and dandy so I'm left with more exercise. This week we are now walking the same mile and a half in the mornings and then again at the regular evening time. They hubby has also decided he wanted to do something and right before we walk at night he steals Jayne for like 30 minutes and jogs about a mile. I think we might have to increase Jayne's caloric intake if he continues being abused like this. I'm also thinking the boys are going to be losing weight/toning up and I won't see any changes. Ah age, really not pretty is it?

The up side is that I'm pretty sure that even though I don't see any benefits to this abuse on the outside that my cardiac health must be better. I know I'm hitting my target heart rate (yes, I have a monitor) so at least there is some benefit. Other than a really happy dog that is. Which, come to think of it, is totally worth it too.

Not how I was planning on spending my Sunday

After a Friday and Saturday full of child's 8th birthday events (including another child's birthday party we went to on Friday) I was expecting to wake up Sunday morning and not really move until say, 2010. Apparently the hubby had different ideas. Yeah like totally different ideas. Not sure why but I agreed to go along with them. Well it may have been because while I did mop the floors the hubby did 99% of the cleaning of the house in preparation for the party at our pad. I suppose he figured if he didn't then it wasn't getting done. He, of course, supposed correctly. For this I was not so easily conned into going along with his Sunday plans.

You know what he wanted to do? Get this, he wanted to go paintballing (he had a half a case of paint left over, i.e. 1000 rounds) and have me take pictures of him. You can ask why but really, boys just love pictures of themselves playing paintball. It's totally beyond me, you're covered completely in clothing and a mask so really you cant even tell who it is but it floats their boats. Whatever. He says he's only going to go for 2 games and the kid can't possibly get bored in that short time span. Mind you 2 games in real time will span about 45 minutes to an hour since there's lag time and what not. I figure 1) I have a book and I can bring that along and 2)I've been wanting to try out my bigger lens (no, I dunno what it is but if you want to know I can figure it out). I am making the assumption at this point that bigger means distance and I don't want to get shot so this is a good thing. Yes, you get shot on the sidelines all the time and it damn well hurts since you aren't playing with the adrenaline pumping through you. Miraculously I did not get shot even though we stayed for a hell of a lot longer than 2 games. We dang well closed the place down.

Apparently the kid decided that the people in the office (it's like a converted trailer) were the funnest thing since Barbie and spent her entire time in there babbling at her new audience. She did not want to leave. It was kinda nice, she was having a good time and leaving us alone so I didn't mind. Kinda feel bad for the office help but they were teenagers and then the owner's wife who is a special ed teacher, to her my kid was probably awesome. No one complained and I know my kid is well behaved so it was good.

So there I went, taking pictures. Please note with all of these pictures, there are probably 200 more (I believe in take 100 and there is bound to be 1 good one) and none of them have had anything done to them. Almost all of them need at least cropping not to mention all the other garbage that people (other than me) do to photoshop their work. I have yet to install my Elements and really, for the most part, all I ever like doing to my pictures is cropping them. I'm a purist, old school, call it what you will. I come from back in the day of 35mm, most of what you did you did with the camera. Also! When out on the field you must wear goggles, the same ones that are on these boys in the pics. Putting the camera up to them is a pain in the ass and I kept on taking pics that were centered too high, too low, too far left or right. So I had a lot of the same shot repeated just so I could get the person centered correctly. Sometimes they moved to fast for this so there is just a sucky shot. Sports shooting, not yet my forte. Give me a few years though.

I found a lot of photos that I liked after looking at them for reasons that I didn't figure out until then. I took this one because I liked the framing.



Needs cropping though, too much frame not enough subject. BTW, in terms of an actual paintball shot it is less than exciting. I realize this, it was more of a photographer thing for me.
This one is another good framing shot, ok in terms of paintball action too,



I wanted to zoom in a bit more but it was hard with trying to keep up with someone running and zig zagging. Yeah, if they are trying not to get shot out then taking a picture of them is totally easy too. Not. Again, this can be fixed a bit with cropping.

This one was entertaining plus the hubby can figure out that he's wasting energy running by going too vertical. He should just be going low and forward. He's more like a leaping deer...



I took a ton of great ones of other players too. One tends to be limited to one side of the field unless you plan on really getting into it. Which I didn't because you will get shot at. No thanks. So I have a bunch of pictures of people I may or may not know that just looked good from a paintball shoot point.




I did get the email of one of these guys, he ended up being in a lot of good shots and I figured he'd like to see them. The other one (lower down) works at the paint ball store and I'm sending them the Photobucket link (feel free to go and look at the rest, there is a ton of older stuff on there so ignore that) to all the rest of the pics.

This guy is the one who normally takes all the pictures (he's got a camera like mine) and like most photographers, he has no pictures of himself playing. he was peached that I got some of him.



Ever have that problem? I know there are very few pictures of me. Oddly I'm ok with that though. Very rarely do I find one of myself that I like so I've deleted most of the ones the hubby has taken of me.

Soon we'll be the Dursley's...

With the child's impending 8th birthday we've been doing the whole party planning (why does it cost so much to throw a birthday party for a child?) and purchasing of toys that she has requested. We're saving the iPod nano for Christmas if you're wondering. If you watch Cartoon Network or Nikelodeon you've probably seen all the one's she's requested. I swear that's where all products should put their commercials. Kids are so easily swayed by commercials. She could be watching any channel and a commercial for a cable company or paper towels comes up and she has to make sure we are using that one. Yeah sure we are honey, change the channel.



For this birthday she wants a few things but on the top of her list are Zhu Zhu pets. Basically electronic hamsters. At one point she had asked for a hamster but I nixed that idea. 3 dogs, 1 snake, and 1 chinchilla is about 5 pets past mommy's max. Plus I abhor hamsters. They bite and they eat their own poo. NO. So when this lovely electronic version came out I was very pleased. Me and just about every other parent in the United States. You know how I know this? Because I waited until this week to go out and buy one. HAH! Dream on baby. Getting the set up, wheel, tubes, car, what not, is very easy. You can totally get a hold of those. The hamster proper? Getting your hands on one of those is an Act of God. They are sold at Amazon (for $45), Toys-R-Us (for $9.99), and Walmart (for $8). I went to a Walmart this past weekend and got the set up stuff but they had no hamsters. The hubby stopped at every Walmart and Walmart super store between San Antonio and Beeville (80 miles south of us) and could not find a hamster. Apparently when they come in there are people waiting. Apparently they are now more popular than gun ammo which is what most people are waiting at the Walmart trucks for. WTF? It's an $8 electronic hamster that runs off of AAA batteries.


I called our local Toys-R-Us' and after many many minutes on perpetual hold come to find out that they got a shipment this morning but there was a line so they were all gone within minutes. Um, I'm sorry what? OK there will be another shipment on Friday but they don't know if there will be any hamsters on it for sure but you're welcome to try. UGH. So not what I want to hear. I am a card carrying member of today's instant gratification society. I should be able to go to the store and get it off the shelf. Ya'll need to make bigger orders! Apparently people are buying them in bulk, marking them up, and selling them on Ebay. Go, look, be horrified. I've shown you the stupid prices for them here, compare them with what they are going for on ebay. Oh and while I'm at it why oh why is Amazon selling them for $45? Anyone? Asinine. I even called my friend in Florida to see if she could call her local stores to find one in stock. No such luck. I was going to call my friends in San Diego to have them do the same but it wasn't 10am on the west coast at that point.

So I finally get a hold of 1 more Toys-R-Us this morning. This one isn't even in San Antonio proper, it's over in Selma which is like a north east suburb 20 miles away from my work. They got 80 in this morning (they open at 10am) and when I called at 11 the still had 20 left. Oh and no, they won't hold them for anyone. Bastages. The only person I know that works over there is the Airforce ER doctor that is my neighbor and helped save my life when my brain exploded. I suppose I could have called him up and begged him to drive to get a Zhu Zhu pet from Toys-R-Us during his lunch break (if they even take them) but really, wouldn't you fell a bit silly? Yeah me too. So I jumped in my car and hauled ass (I may have pushed a few speed limits) all the way across town to get a stupid freaking electronic hamster that is more precious than gold this close to Christmas. Really it's the only reason I could figure that these retarded little $8 toys are so back ordered! In October! Worse than Cabbage Patch Kids in the 80's. I didn't get to have one of those, btw.

So for all of you moms and dads out there: If your child wants something specific please do not do like I did and wait until 1 week prior to the date needed. Make damn sure you know you can get a hold of it and if not then tell all of your friends to keep an eye out for you. They wouldn't bother themselves with something you want but if your kid wants it bets have it that they'll find it for you!

Fortunately for me they still had like 15 in stock when I got to the store. Well maybe fortunately for them because after being on the phone all morning if I hadn't gotten the stupid things (I just went ahead and bought all 4 varieties) I may have had to kill someone. Just sayin'...

Do you think 8 yrs old is too young?

It was just this month that I came to the reality check that is what having a child turning 8 is. October seems to be the month for birthdays. Apparently we all seem to get busy at the end of January/beginning of February. Last weekend the kid had a slumber party on Friday night and a costume birthday party Saturday night. Prior to this year (which, if you're keeping track is the second grade for our kid) when birthday parties came along you'd take the kid and stay for the duration of the party. I guess second grade is the delineating year. When you get to this age you take the kid, drop them off at the door, and BYE! Come pick them up at the designated ending time. ROCKIN! I am totally down with that. We are having our party this Saturday (oh and someone else is having a party on Friday that we are attending) with a slightly different lean though. We tend to invite the whole family, which includes the little kids in the family so most likely those parents will be staying. I don't care either way really as long as parents understand that when they are left in my care they will be under my rules. I'm strict and I believe in discipline. You don't know that then you don't know me well enough to leave your child in my loving care. See how that works? Yeah.

So this year is also a big turning point in presents. The kid has decided she wants a camera. She is very good when using my camera (the older one, not the Rebel, it's too heavy with the lenses on) so I'd love to get her a point and shoot. For her birthday though I think we'll get her toys. Christmas is when we'll go for the camera thing. Now mind you the hubby got a wild and crazy idea. If she wants a camera wouldn't she just adore video i.e. iPod nano? Which is where the question of do you think she's too young comes in. I asked her if she'd like something like that and showed her one of them at Costco. She was like "Oh yeah then I can download video off the internet!" and I was like "What?". Where the hell do they get these ideas in the second grade?

I initially thought 8 would be too young for a iPod. Then I thought a bit more about it. Why? I think she's old enough for a camera and the nano is about the same price and about as delicate. Plus it's Apple, she's going to have to get used to Apple stuff, it's a societal thing right? The more I think about it the better I am with it. Plus you know, we both have iPhones, this is like the Apple 'gateway drug'. A few more years and by the time she's in middle school she'll have something more kick ass than the iPhone. And we had what at her age, knickers? Mrs. Potato head? that we are even able to drive cars much less use our cell phones in this day and age is a mystery.....

He's going to start changing all of his passwords if I keep this up

You know that problem with being too close to someone? You know, like your spouse. Like too close as in we know all of each others passwords? OK he doesn't actually know all mine and I'm sure there are a few of his I don't know. He can't get into our bank accounts but I gave him the passwords, he just doesn't remember them. I know almost all of his, the only one I don't is his atm card code. Of course it's the same bank account as mine so that's neither here nor there. We both have passwords onto the various on line forums though and since most people (including us) re-use a smattering of passwords over and over it's pretty easy to figure out how to get into his stuff.

We rarely belong to the same forums so over lap is not a problem. Except for the few we do both belong to. PBNation was one of those but I'm not on it anymore. I'm not sure he is either, maybe sometimes. City Data forums too, and I accidentally posted a response up when it was logged in as him. To this day he still gets an occasional IM for more info on water softener systems and a really inexpensive plumber. He tells me that his doppelganger has to get on and answer that email for him. On occasion we'll also have Facebook problems. I'll go on and it looks like I'm logged in but that's only because most of his friends are my friends too. And then I don't notice until I've done gone and posted up as him. Both of our profile pictures have both of us in them so it throws me for a loop for a second but then I have to go in and change it. Or ignore it, we're married so the info that comes from one of us might a well be the same as the other right?

Now on occasion I'll also get on to some of his stuff to help him out. Say if he's at work (he has no internet access there or cell phone) and needs something sent out I'll log on to his email (yes I know that password and it connects me to his blog too) and mail it for him. I also know his FB, iTunes, and I'm sure a smattering of other log ons and have been known to, on occasion, go in and make some alterations.

Today I found a picture on one of our friend's FB uploads of them playing paintball last weekend. I thought one of them would make a good profile pic for him so I changed it. Yes I logged into his account and proceeded to modify at will. It's one of my rights as a wife, read the fine print. Funny that though, I had an ex boyfriend who was a little...obsessive? He would read my emails and chats and I couldn't get on the phone and talk to anyone with out him asking for the whole conversation to be repeated to him. Odd man. Now him I did not share passwords with. That man was nutters. Oddly though I don't mind the hubby getting into any of the websites and having at it if he felt so inclined. Of course it helps that he doesn't normally feel so inclined. Someday though I'm going to push his buttons and post up a pic he doesn't like though and you watch, he's going to have to go in and make up whole new passwords huh? That'll be an ugly day and then I'll have to go out of my way and get myself a hacker. What a bother!

College all nighter flash backs and the "O" face

Yeah so we're parents and as such we are responsible for getting the kid's home work done right? Yeah we can say that the kid has to do it but lets be realistic here, we work just as hard on this shit as they do. This week the kid had a project due that she was supposed to have worked on for oh, about a week or 2 now. The Olive/Oliver project, similar to the Stanley project only not nearly as fun (IMHO). With Stanley you mailed him to some one far away and they send back pictures of where they went with him. Kinda like that gnome thing only with a person you know. Ours was awesome since we sent him to Mumbai India with my friend Summer. The Oliver thing was to be local and the kids had to take him along with them and then write in a journal about it. Kind of like a diary. Then you marked on a map of the city where you went and you could either draw a picture or take pictures and put them in the journal entry. Really, doesn't hold a candle to Mumbai. Realize that we don't actually go anywhere here, it's Texas for crying out loud.

Also, we should have been working on this for weeks now right? Sure yeah, we got to it. Not. The kid has homework everyday and is in gymnastics/after school care every day until I pick her up at 5:30. Until 6:45 on Tuesdays and Thursdays (team practice). I pick her up, drag her home, set her up for homework at the table and prepare dinner. By the time she's done with her regular homework it's time to eat and then are we going to do more? Not likely. Plus we suck and never did it on the weekend. It was due yesterday (Tuesday). We kept her up until 9 pm working on it Monday night because she had to finish her regular homework too. It was like this vile flashback of our college days where we'd leave a huge project untouched until the wee hours of the night before it was due. Of course there's a difference between how late one can force themselves to stay up as a teen to twenty year old and a seven year old. Yeah, we suck. She survived though and that speaks volumes as to how good we are at breeding tough off spring.

Did I mention that we still think of ourselves as marginal when it comes to parenting and this last minute project had just a few of those short comings laid throughout it? I mean the time factor alone, yeah we suck. But there was this "O" face thing that we had to get past too.Yeah, that's what I said, the "O" face. The what face honey? One of the places that she wrote about taking her Olive was the pumpkin patch. She has a preference in pumpkin faces this year and she calls it the "O" face pumpkin. You know what I'm talking about right? The pumpkin that has a big O for the mouth? Yeah, this is her fixation this year and she wanted to put in her journal the phrase "O" face. We had to draw the line there. But of course she wanted to know why. How in the world do you explain the ramifications of the phrase "O" face to a 7 year old that doesn't even know what sex is? I mean even if we were really on it parents and had told her what sex is (don't start with me peeps, I'm passing that duty on to the hubby so harass him) how do you take that the one step further? Do you see the problem here? The universe was being nice to us last night though and she accepted us just telling her to trust us and leave the phrase out. I'm sure she'll end up revisiting it eventually though so really we just dodged the bullet that's going to swing around and come right back at us again though huh?

Ah parenting, we still suck at it. Poor offspring....