Religious Debate

The community in which I live is rumored to have the most churches per capita than any other city in the South. I would tend to to believe this is true. Life revolves around religious activities here, and if you're not religious it impacts your life just as much since you have to adjust your daily time line on Wednesday nights and all day Sunday to deal with the "church crowds" at restaurants, grocery stores, and other various places. It is not an exaggeration that in the South when a person meets you for the first time one of the the ways they make small talk is to ask you what church you attend, and if you don't have one they immediately invite you to theirs. It's only the polite thing to do.

When I received this e-mail this morning via a forward from a friend I knew I had to post it here. It was just too good not to share with the world. Here's the premise:

"This is literally a 'church signs' debate, being played out in a Southern US town, between Our Lady of Martyrs Catholic Church, and Cumberland Presbyterian, a fundamentalist church. From top to bottom shows you the response and counter-response over time. The Catholics are displaying a much better sense of humor! You get the impression that the Presbyterians are actually taking this seriously and are getting a bit upset..."



And now to spoil all the fun... yes, it's fake. I could have told you that when I saw that the two churches used in the church sign generator were a Catholic Church and a Presbyterian. In the South, all other churches pretend that the Catholics do not exist.

Fire Drill

I live in a house that has 12, count em', 12 smoke detectors. No my house is not a mansion. It has 10 rooms when you count the bathrooms and the basement. The lady who previously owned this home either was super paranoid about fire or the door-to-door smoke alarm salesman was wicked hot. There's really no other explanation.

I guess it isn't a bad thing to have a ton of smoke detectors in your home, until they all need to have their batteries replaced at once. That's what I've been faced with for the last month - running around listening for where the annoying high pitched beep was coming from. Then once you think you've found it, hauling out the step ladder for an impressive balancing act to get the old battery out. Every single one of the alarms had the batteries go bad within five weeks and the high pitched warning sound became the norm around here.

I guess that's where Seka learned her latest trick which involves whining at the top of her lungs in the middle of the night to make Roxy get up and move off of the bed she is sound asleep on so that she can have it.

Yes, she sounds just like the failing smoke alarms.

Now the first night this happened I fell for her trick hook, line, and sinker. At first stumbled around and tried to figure out where in the world the 13th smoke alarm could be. Lying there at 3 a.m. I had decided that I the one place I didn't check were our closets.

Then I realized it was Seka doing a pretty realistic impression of our alarms. I laughed and got up and went downstairs to let her out. But when I turned around I discovered only one dog had followed me down to the backdoor and it wasn't the one I thought it would be. I went back upstairs to find Seka settled in Roxy's spot, happy as a clam. And not moving.

The second night I ignored the crying but Roxy didn't. She got fooled again and lost her warm spot on her favorite bed. Roxy was a good sport about it and just found somewhere else to sleep.

The third night, not even Roxy fell for Seka's false alarm impression, which only frustrated her. I have to admit it is funny, but not at 2 a.m. And when she doesn't get her way, it isn't pretty. And when I'm jolted awake due to an unnecessary high pitched scream, let's just say it's not pretty either. The alpha order was restored pretty quickly.

Luckily Seka realized her audience for her stupid dog trick has been reduced to zero. And I've done some selective reduction of my own on the smoke alarm front.

I'm still on the look out for that hot fire alarm salesman.

-- Post From My iPhone

Beach Dog

Here's Roxy sticking her toes in the Atlantic for the very first time. She was a bit freaked out by the waves at first. But she waded in with me pretty deep and even sat down in the water for a marshmallow! Seka on the other hand would rather have all of her other toes amputated than stick one of them in the ocean.




-- Post From My iPhone

Art Therapy

It's spring break and I'm on vacation at the beach. Yes, the weather is good. Yes, I'm getting a tan. Yes, I've had a massage. Yes, I've had awesome meals. Yes, I've slept late. Yes, I've had drinks with umbrellas in them.

So, why am I a little blue? I miss my girls.

It sucks that people can take screaming, crying, cracker crumb spreading, children to stay in hotel rooms, not to mention fine dining establishments, but when it comes to pets it is total drama to find a place that will take a dog over 15 pounds, much less two of them. So my girls are staying at a fabulous place about two hours away from us that is for Greyhounds only, of which I will write more about later this week. But for tonight, I thought I'd share the make-shift art therapy session that I used to help me get over the hump of missing my babies.

These artistic creations were crafted on BeFunky. It's a free service that allows you to upload your own pictures and apply various filters to the piece to create a funky, fresh piece of art. It was a lot of fun trying out all of the options. I used a wicked old photo of Seka showing off her pearly whites and applied the Warhol filter. And since Roxy is such a character, I used one of the cartoon filters on one of the very first pictures I ever took of her.

So, until the day the world wises up and realizes that dogs are less likely to destroy a hotel room, vomit on the floor, wipe poop on the walls, and cause less noise than an 18 month old child, I'll have to learn how to comfort myself when we leave the girls for an extended time.

Bartender, another hair of the dog please...

QVC Wanna Be

I've always wanted to work for QVC as on-air talent. I think it would be so much fun thinking of ways to make anything from light bulbs to porcelain dolls interesting, entertaining and necessary. I watch QVC regularly when I'm home alone (which is a lot) and their hosts fill my quiet house with a friendly, knowledgeable voice. If they ever needed a pet specialist, I would so apply for that job!

So, when the fine folks at the FURminator, contacted me to take a sneak peek at their new deShedding tools that you can use in the bath, I jumped at the chance to produce my own QVC-esque review of their product.




Now, I've never used any of the FURminator products. I have greyhounds, and we all know that they shed minimally. Well, that's what I thought until I threw them in the bath tub and used the TubNub on them! This rubber grooming tool helped to remove enough hair to cover another greyhound! And for those of you with black greyhounds, the TubNub helped me rinse Seka totally clean of all the soap residue, which causes the flakiness that you typically see the day after their bath. This is a bath miracle in and of itself, since I've tried everything (including apple cider vinegar) to stop this next day flake fest.





The deShedding Shampoo and Solution smell awesome and helped Roxy stop the constant, annoying itching she goes through this time of the year. I totally believe it is the combination of the Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids in the Shampoo and the Aloe & Oatmeal in the Solution that has put an end to the itching. Getting rid of all that dead hair that was floating around in her undercoat had to help too!

Putting an end to their spa evening, my girls enjoyed getting a quick dry with the FURminator's Microfiber towel. While the size is a tad small, it does a lot of work, soaking up a ton of water. I think this would be a great towel to keep in your car if your dog likes to take a dip in a local pond. This towel can soak up all the unwanted water before your pup jumps back in the car, and the bright green towel doesn't take up a lot of room in the trunk, like that old beach towel you've been carrying around.

So, now that I've got my taste of QVC-like fame, I'll do more product reviews from time-to-time. I've got to figure out how to position my web cam so Roxy and Seka can get in on the action as well. I wish I had kept the out takes so you could have seen Roxy interrupting me with her own reviews. Maybe next time we'll do a blooper reel.

Juicy Juice

I'm one of those people who may not have the healthiest relationship with food. I tend to eat my feelings. And boy, lately I've had a lot of feelings. It's part of the reason this blog has been neglected, because it's not been for lack of subject matter. So, I decided that I needed to renegotiate my relationship with food before I had to buy a new wardrobe, and not for the better - if you know what I mean.

Since putting my girls on a raw diet five months ago, they have been thriving. Pick something and it's better ten-fold: coat, breath, teeth, energy, etc. So, I started doing research on raw diets for people and came across a juicing program that both detoxes your body and helps you ease your way into a vegetarian lifestyle, something that I've always wanted to do, but have never been able to successfully do for any length of time.

So I purchased a juicer to make my own organic, raw fruit and vegetable juices. And after a bit of research on recipes that I thought might taste good, I went to the grocery and cleaned out the tiny organic section of our produce department.

Now, I honestly have never bought that many vegetables in my entire life. Ever. I even bought beets people! All I could think of while I was piling my basket full of all these healthy fruits and veggies was, "I bet my poop will be colorful."

I wasn't scared of the fruit juice. I knew it wouldn't taste like Tropicana, but it was fruit juice - so it couldn't be bad. I do have to admit that I was a bit afraid of the veggie juice. But I found that I really liked carrot juice - and so did my Siamese cat. I couldn't keep her out of it. She'd stick her face so far down in the glass that she would stain her cheeks orange. I learned the secret was to juice an apple with any veggie juice and it makes it better.

When you use a juicer, what's left in the machine is the fiber/pulp of the vegetable. After the first day I felt like it was a waste to just throw that stuff away. I don't have a compost pile, which seemed like an ideal place for this stuff to go. But wait - I do have a compost pile, two compost piles actually: Seka and Roxy. This seemed like a great way to add in veggies and fruits to their diets without me having to get out the darn food processor and mix it up special for them. So I scraped out the pulp and put it in ice cube trays and poured some low sodium chicken broth over the top. Now every day they get a little chicken pop treat, which they love.

So for five days all I consumed was fresh, organic juice. Usually it was fruit in the morning, veggie at lunch and fruit at night. I also had green tea. After getting over the hurdle of the first day and thinking about food constantly, it surprisingly wasn't hard. I had a lot of energy, despite the lack of chewable food. I didn't crave anything. After coming off of my fast, I've eaten a small vegetarian (I eat fish, eggs, cheese and milk) meal mid-day and still juice morning and night. I feel good and I don't have crazy cravings at all hours of the day. I also reach for the water bottle when I'm feeling stressed, which is still happening regularly. But all in all, my switch to a raw-er way of life has been good. I guess I should have paid more attention to my girls all along!

Kiss Us, We're Half Irish

St. Patrick's Day is an odd celebration to me. I totally understand that it is just an excuse to drink green beer and act foolish. We quietly celebrate this day with a bowl of Lucky Charms and maybe wearing some green socks to work. Maybe if I were Catholic and went to CCD I'd get it.

Kev is half Irish, but he doesn't drink beer or whiskey. I'm sure it's just a stereotype, although my girlfriend's brother was working in Ireland last week and was in a town that had a population of 140, with 7 pubs. Maybe it's not.

Seka likes to drink beer, though. I've heard rumors that they give winners beer right after races to encourage them to "go" so they can perform the mandatory illegal substance tests. Certainly, Seka never acquired a taste for a celebratory toast, but she does find her way to a beer bottle if one is in the house so she can sneak a swig. Roxy on the other hand isn't all that interested. So maybe our pack is half Irish as well.

Maybe the half that Kevin got was the part that eats black pudding or can sheer a sheep. That doesn't apply either. If it looks strange, he's not going to eat it and I'm afraid he can't tell the difference in a goat and a sheep. However, the girls pick up the slack here as well. After switching to raw they eat sweet breads, livers, tripe and all other types of organs. I'm sure that all goes into black pudding in some shape form or fashion.

I'm all English on my side of the family. My ancestors came over on a boat and settled the mountains of North Carolina. There are books written about how they were some of the first families in the Valley of the Globe. But I must have had some Irish influence in our family, as my sister and I are both buck and wing cloggers - which is the mountain version of Irish step dancing. Think River Dance without the annoying flute music and replace it with Ricky Skaggs. So I bring a little flavor to the table.

So, happy St. Patrick's Day. Celebrate it in whatever way you see fit. I think my girls hope that I never see fit to dress them like this ever again.