Almost Done!

   I've been off my blog for a few days to work on a project in my basement (or the "dungeon" as we call it).  My husband has been spending a lot of time working on his half of the basement, he calls it his "man cave".  Hanging up his sports memorabilia, moving his pinball machine, exercise bike, and trying to figure out if we can fit a couch (we are getting a fairly new couch from a friend of ours, to put in our family room)in his "man cave", along with a top of the line treadmill that's been sitting in our garage for more than 2 months!  Trust me, I would rather his sports memorabilia be all displayed in the basement, instead of all through the house like it is now!  I can't wait until he's all done.  He can host his poker nights down there as well!
  My half of the basement is partially taken up by the furnace unit, water heater, and washer & dryer.  I am fixing up a big corner of my half and turning it into a little "cozy corner", where I can have peace and quiet to read, relax, do crafts etc...  I am almost done, just have to finish painting and figuring out where to put things etc...

Lightning

One of my favorite things about summer is the big thunderstorms that bring an awesome show of lightning!
As far as lightning goes, Mother Nature is putting on one of her best shows for us tonight! The news station here is saying we are having about 20 lightning strikes a minute here!
I love how lightning just lights up a night sky! It's truly amazing! I'm going to make myself a cup of coffee, turn off the lights and enjoy the show!

Shoe Mourning

Today I am in mourning. I'm mourning the demise of my favorite pair of ankle high black suede boots! (pause to wipe tear here)

The little heel on my left boot broke, well actually it's more like it just broke into pieces, just fell apart! The heel is not salvagable, so into to the trash they went this morning. These boots were my absolute favorite pair of shoes for at least the past 3 years. I loved them! From the beginning, I felt they were just made for me!

I have a $50 Nordstroms gift card that's been burning a hole in my wallet for a while, so off to Nordstroms rack I went. My mission was to find a suitable substitute for my now gone boots.

I was at Notrdstroms rack for about 45 min hopelessly looking for a new pair of boots, and I found very few suitable pairs. First of all, even deeply discounted shoes were still way over my $50 gift card limit, and they had about every color suede boot except black.

I had no luck in finding anything for me but I did have a few laughs at some of the shoes I saw. A couple of shoes I saw are posted here:

The yellow rain boots were discounted to a "bargain" price of $89.00!

These "Hollywood Hooker" shoes were marked down to only $190.00!
What a bargain!  They weren't even designer shoes!

Affordable, simple, little black suede boots. Where are you?!

Surprise Visitor

Usually the only occupants of our house during the day consist of me and our two dogs. Well today was different.
This morning was like any other morning in our house, my husband getting ready for work, me taking care of the dogs etc... The usual routine. Well, my morning changed from "usual routine" to "chaos" in a blink of an eye!
The second my husband stepped foot out the door, an unknown dog swiftly ran in! The dog not only ran into our house, he instantly ran down into our basement (the basement stairs are right next to our side door)! I took off down the basement stairs yelling "here doggie, here doggie". the dog ran through the door and down the stairs so fast that I didn't even get a good glimpse of him. All I knew was that the dog was dark colored and was definitely bigger than our two dogs put together!
The second I got into our basement, the dog ran past me and ran up the stairs and started barking at our two dogs who were going crazy and barking back. At least the sight of our dogs stopped our "surprise visitor" so I could get a hold of him and try to get some of kind of control of the situation.
I quickly trapped our "guest" in my kitchen and trapped our dogs in another room, at least until I could get a good look at this dog and get an idea of his demeanor. He had a collar on but no tag, and looked well taken care of, and when I approached he quickly layed on the floor and rolled onto his back for a tummy rub. After a few calming tummy strokes I left him in my kitchen with some kibble and went outside to see if anyone was looking for a dog. No one was.
One by one I introduced the dog to our dogs and after a few sniffs of each others "you know whats", all three started playing with each other, under my supervision of course.
Our newspaper had no posting for a lost dog that matched this dog's description. I called our neighborhood vet and let them know I found this dog and gave them his description , and also called our police dept and let them know the same.
Since the dog was obviously someone's pet and had a great demeanor about him, we decided we were going to keep him until we found his owner, and if we couldn't find his owner after a period of time, he would be a welcomed "new addition" to our family!

Our "surprise visitor, Bowzer"!

Around 4:30 p.m. I got a call from our police dept. The officer on the phone said a woman called in frantic about her missing dog who matched the description of dog I was watching sleep on my family room floor. He is a 11 month old black lab and hound mix, and his name is "Bowzer". Turns out "Bowzer" had gotten out through the back door of his house because it was not closed all the way when his owner left for work this morning. The officer gave me the woman's phone number so I could tell her where to pick him up.
I called Bowzer's owner right away, and I could tell by her voice that she'd been crying (I felt so sorry for her). She described Bowzer to me down to the color of his collar. I assured her he was okay, and gave her my address (turns out she lives a few blocks away). Within minutes of hanging up the phone a black SUV pulled into our driveway. A young woman came to our door, I greeted her, then quickly brought Bowzer to her. The second she saw Bowzer, she hugged him, and without saying anything to me she quickly put Bowzer in her car and drove off.
Now, Bowzer is a very sweet, lovable dog and I didn't mind taking care of him for a day (or much longer if needed). Also, thank God Bowzer got himself somewhere where he was safe and he didn't get hurt or worse when he was running around the streets here. I really didn't mind having him here, I was happy to help him!
What I'm a little upset about in this situation is that the woman that owns Bowzer didn't even say "thank you". She didn't say "thank you" over the phone and didn't say it when she picked him up! If that happened to me, I would be extremely grateful and appreciative!