the end of the night

Dinner so far

more christmas

Max is jealous of Tucker's toy

christmas morning

more craftiness

oh that martha. these pine cones are from her november issue of living. it took me a few attempts to get it right as evidenced by the progression. but they turned out cute, i think.

candy attempt

i want to make edible gifts this christmas and this was my first attempt. i could have gotten more out of the batch, but who can pass up eating oreos?

right now they look like poop.

i got a nice steam facial out of the double boiler while i worked.

lesson learned: don't let the balls cool on a baking rack. the chocolate dried them onto the rack and they cracked when i pulled them off. also i think i'll use dark or bitterweet chocolate instead of milk.

Thanksgiving so far...

mine and mel's

my other contribution

turkey's done!

my contribution

our appetizer spread
cheese ball turkey & Mel

staying busy

Periodically, I make little crafts in an attempt to pare down my scrap piles. So we have more cup cleeves, coasters and new for '08 Flair! I figured I'd put it out in the shop and see if I can sell some as holiday gifts.
So the pile goes down,but then I see something fun and have to but more supplies. Faux bois is everywhere so I made some log slice coasters, wooden buttons and from Martha Stewart, log trivets. A friend has been knitting some fabulous, huge cowls and I'm making the buttons for him.

So that's what I've been up to outside of doggie daycare.

Keeping Busy

So now that the wedding's over, we've returned our attention to the daycare. We have not been able to get access to the business website which chaps my hide. Personally I think we should deduct from our monthly business payment, the money we spent on business cards and t shirts that I put this address on.
For now I've updated the blog in lieu of an actual website. So if you want to see what we do with the puppies all day, be sure to check it out.

Update: I just heard from the gal who did the website and it looks like we are ready to pop now. I don't understand all the computer talk but Mike does which is all that matters. So we should be able to start re-doing the website soon!

More Wedding Porn

Ahh the wedding. After a proposal on Valentine's Day and months of preparation, the actual wedding zipped by very quickly. My advice, get everything locked and loaded in advance so you can sit back and take it all in on the day of. I had a super fabulous time and I hope I didn't forget to say "Hi" and "Thanks" to anyone there.

And man the pictures!! I was starving after the ceremony but couldn't get away due to pictures. But now I have lots and lots of pictures to look over to remind me af that fabulous day!

And the food! What a spread. Everyone brought such wonderful food! I'm only sorry I couldn't sample it all. Of course now we have tons of cupcakes left over. I think I'll take some to Chris (my wedding planner) since he was the one who recommended we have a large supply of cupcakes. I'm sure he won't mind.

wedding recap through photos

wedding teaser

Sorry for the delay

i have been busy getting wedding stuff done. i will have a big post with pictures of the wedding. as for now, i have too much running around to do.

DNC

Trish, Melanie and an unidentified hottie at the closing date of the DNC.

The gates opened at 1 and we weren't sure what to expect. We rode the train from Union Station and waited in a line that wound around for blocks. At least it wasn't too hot and we were given water.

Al Gore's very inspirational speach. He was really there, not via satellite. It's just that photos of folks on the stage are really small and i wanted to show him. I am a big Al lover. He said in his speech that had the election 8 years ago gone differently, well things would have been very different now. You can't imagine how many times I've thought the same thing.

Obama giving his acceptance speech. Both Gore and Kerry seemed to be 'taking the high road' and brushing away Republican accusations during their campaigns. Obama answered them back. I've been waiting fort a Democratic candidate with some backbone.

Below are the media tents. We kept looking through the binoculars for famous people and could only make out Wolf Blitzer and Katie Couric. Oh and Anderson Cooper ahhhhhhhh Anderson Cooper.

Invitations!

Invitations are in the mail! Hooray! Flowers are ordered! Rentals are booked!

Wordle

Wordle is making the rounds on the blogs I frequent, so I thought I'd give it a try. This is my blog in a Word Cloud.

My Space

So here I am at daycare, alone. Mike is at his last day of work and Mel is at her 2nd. One of our dogs won't stop barking and I am getting ready to watch more Mad Men before falling asleep in my chair.
Ahh the life!

So I've been trying to work on MySpace and I am not having fun. I can't figure all the ins and outs to get anything done on it. So I guess what you see is what you get till I get my copy of "MySpace for Dummies"

I am entering 'freak out' stage with regards to wedding plans. I wanted the invitations in the mail already but they came in at the beginning of the month with a glaring typo. I didn't rush the reprint because the print shop's turnaround has been a week. Well we're entering week 2 and I am getting more and more cheesed off with each passing day. I figured I'd be getting them out early since every wedding invitation I've received was a month out. Now it looks like mine will be close to that. So if you're reading this, it's a good possibility you will be invited so "Save the Date: Friday, October 3, 2008"

Other wedding plans are going well even though I had hoped to have more locked and loaded. I still need to order the reception ware. No paper plates for my friends! We need to get Mike's suit and Mel's dress. I need to order flowers. Sheesh, what have I gotten done?

Oh well, now I'm off to watch the rest of season one of Mad Men. A fabulous show that I highly recommend.

Vintage Roadside

One of my daily sites, Curbly, posted about this great website Vintage Roadside. I am a huge fan of all things retro roadside. In fact I use Roadside America when planning my trips to South Dakota. So check them out and buy a shirt for a good cause.

Month 2

Well we are getting settled into the routine. We worked our keisters off to get the shop presentable by our first Yappy Hour at the end of July. Unforunately we didn't have too many attendees, if fact we had only 2. I open the shop door for drop off and pick up to get it noticed and we have gotten a great response. The shop just wasn't getting any notice inside the house. We have sold some merchandise and I have 2 orders for paintings already.
There's still a bit of work to do with getting the grooming area finished, but it's coming along nicely. I've bought a bit of new merchandise and am planning a larger order probably next month. August and September are the lean months due to back to school. I want to have a huge Howloween Party in October so I'll be sure to have the new stuff by then. It's been pretty fun shopping around online for dog products. I want to find eco-friendly, recycled, and/or local products to sell. I also want to do some more handmade stuff. A friend's mom is working of felted dogs and dog blankies. She said she'd also do some sweaters for winter.
Now that the house is mostly empty, I'm anxious to get some stuff moved in. Definitely living room furniture since right now we have a tiny tv on a discarded table with a folding chair. The master bedroom needs the most work since that was where the groomer was. We are going to need to redo the floors in there and get rid of the remaining stuff.
On another note, I'm starting to freak out about the wedding since I only have 2 months left. I'm waiting for the invites so we can get those out and tomorrow I'm going to put in the rental order for the reception tableware. Then I need to figure out how many centerpieces I need so I can put in a flower order.
So I'm keeping plenty busy :)

new blog

so now that we have internet at daycare, i've been working on the business blog. we still don't have access to the website which annoys me. i want to link the two so customers can check out the blog and see pics from daycare.
anyhoo, for now if you want to see some daycare stuff, check out the new blog.
the plumbing is almost finished and then we can start on setting up the shop and spa. more pics to come when we get going on that.

one month later

so having completed our first month of doggie daycare/huge life change, i have to say "so far so good."
i really want to do a LOT to fix up the place.
the indoor area is stuffy and kinda stinky first thing in the morning so i want to get a better ventilation system going.
the cement floors and bare walls increase every bark to an ear splitting level so i want to install recycled rubber flooring.
i also want to paint inside and add some 'hominess.' the clean slate of it is starting to wear thin on me and i need to fix it up. i'm almost a bit embarrased for new clients to see it and think that this is how i live.
it is also very, very dirty. i know that dogs are dirty but i think it can be a bit tidier and not leaving me feeling that i was the one rolling around in the dirt all day.
we also lost our groomer, but i think this is for the best because i'm beginning to judge her as flakey. so my friend sam has been acting groomer for us. we are all learning how to do some basic clipping and trimming along with the bathing and brushing we can offer. we have a plumber coming in next week to move the groomer from the master bedroom of the main house to the garage. we also want to add self service washing which will hopefully make up for our lack of a trained groomer.
the shop will also go in the garage and i have been searching online for eco friendly and recycled products to sell.
i also want to compost the dog poop since we fill a kitchen sized trash can every week. i've found a few sites on how to do it and i think the trash service will thank us for it.
sam, when he is not bathing dogs, is planning a farm/garden for the rest of the property. our long term goal is to have fruit, vegetables and flowers and be able to operate a CSA. basically, customers pay us a fee and get a basket of food and flowers every week.

so that's the irons in the fire right now. as for the day to day it can be a bit tedious. mel and i end up exhausted at the end of the day not from physical exertion, but rather from a lack of it. there is no internet or cable yet which means that i can't do any research or blogging from work. we try not to have the dogs barking too much which means that play time can be cut short when the kids get too riled up. if we have enough people per dogs then i pop in the house to do some cleaning, but i can only do so much right now. i think once the plumbing is done i will have a lot of projects to work on.

as for the dogs, we have some sweeties and some naughtys. they naughty ones tend to be younger and just want to play more than anyone else. i feel bad for the sweeties; that they are being neglected because my time has to be spent with the naughtys. "don't eat that rock", "quit digging", "get away from that poop." sometimes the barking makes me cranky, but nothing is better than snuggling up for some fuzzy therapy.
pictured above is one of our top naughties, sumo. i don't get very upset with him because he is my little sad clown.

doggie daycare owner

well we did it! today was our first official day of doggie daycare ownership. we rolled out of bed at 5am to be in Wheat Ridge by 6:30. we had to do some opening stuff like fill water bowls and empty the poop can. we had 9 paying customers today but 16 dogs total. i gotta say that doggie daycaring is pretty easy. i wasn't bored but i felt that i could have multi-tasked and better utilized my time. i could have had a tv cos watching dogs play is pretty easy. pick up when they poop and break up any humping. we have a big project right out of the gate though. we need to run plumbing out to the garage so we can have the groomer out there and not in the master bedroom. sam is going to do some major planting on the property and we even get water rights to the little creek (irrigation ditch).

i think we made the right decision, i will just like it better when i have some tasks to accomplish.

wedding planning 101

i feel that i am pretty experienced in the party planning department, especially themed parties. and what's a wedding if not a huge theme party? since i don't plan on doing this again, here's my lessons learned so far in the fine art of planning a wedding.

1. Secure a venue/Pick a date. i have learned that these are the first things you should do when planning any event and tend to go hand in hand. i was floating around in a newly engaged haze and propably would have remained there if it hadn't been for my event planning friend. his second remark after "Shut up!" was "You need to get a venue." turns out he was right. this was February 15 and my original date of October 4 was already taken.

i could have kept the date and gone sonewhere else, but it wasn't the date so much for me as the venue.

http://www.botanicgardens.org/

my original date was going to be when we met, August 2o or our first date August 27, but those fell in the middle of the week and the middle of the Democratic National Convention. make sure there are no huge community events going on that will make travel and accomodations difficult for guests.

after much checking of schedules, we settled on October 3. yeah it's a Friday, but the groom figured that gives folks 2 days of party recovery. he's so thoughful.

so back to the venue, this required a lot of hemming and hawing on my part. the garden offered many sites individually or a wedding package. i was emailing back and forth with the venue coordinator then running down to my 'wedding planner' then back to the groom in my attempts to stay off of Mt. Spendy. it took about a week of this before i finally settled on the wedding package including the polly steel house from 5-11p. the final decision was to have 2 hours for set up and have the farmhouse for the entire time as dressing room/storage/additional bad weather seating.

so now that this part is locked and loaded, it was on to the theme.

sorry for the delay

may has been a crazy, busy month. the daycare plans are moving forward and we are closing on the 30th. i feel nervous sometimes about this new venture but excited as well. i think we will both be much happier with work and feel that everything we do is improving our lives.
the library has been keeping me busy for my last few weeks. a new fresh city life series started and i've been sneaking over there to help out. we did a huge exhibit of cowboy boots and clothing and last weekend was the big hodown. check out the pictures at
www.denverlibrary.org/fresh
or here's a shortcut to the westword slide show of the exhibit
http://westword.com/slideshow/index.php?gallery=64304&type=1&current=0
i'm still fixing up the house and trying to get rid of some things since we will be selling it in the fall. and speaking of the fall, wedding plans are going well. i think i am really staying on top of things. i'll be heading over to jenna's this week to work on the invites. sam is coming over to help me plant wedding flowers in the garden.
so, that's it for now. i'll post more after closing.

my book!

Funny how the book is available for purchase but i haven't seen an actual copy yet. in fact we will be doing the indexing this weekend. we are also trying to go to the ALA conference in Anaheim this June for a book signing.

doggie daycare update

well we've made our offer and it was accepted. we are asking to close at the end of may, so mike is getting the finances in order, scheduling inspections and everything else that causes my eyes to glaze over. i am spending the time trying to get this house more in order and presentable for when we put it on the market in the fall. all that and getting things wrapped up at the library, wedding plans, and craft projects. so never a dull moment.

wedding vote #2

i first saw button 'wedding cake' rings on eames & lola and thought they were the cutest things ever. so here's the vote, i was thinking of making some of these as wedding favors.

whaddya think?