Koda's Corgi Tales

8:51:22 AM PDT
Feeling Mischievous

When my husband and me took our mini-vacation, we boarded Koda in this place called Pet Suites and boy was it a sweet place for him. I wish we had found it sooner because it was a great place for him and he came out of it less stressed than when we would board him the few times we did at the vet's.

Here's a brief description of their facility: 

Although many modern facilities have a few suites (private rooms with special touches of home), most boarded pets are kept in "runs"; basically rows of cages in large rooms. As pets enter or leave these rooms, barking and other stressful activity occurs, keeping many of the animals in a constant state of agitation. At Pet Suites, our 94 suites are grouped into boarding pavilions of approximately 16 suites each. Each suite has a tempered glass door which allows your pet to see out across an open court to several of his or her neighbors. Each pavilion has access to its own secure exercise and play yard where your pet is taken by a 'pet attendant" several times each day. When animals enter or leave the pavilion, barking is minimal as most of the pets are unaware of what is taking place.  Although we could have bult runs and housed over three times as many pets in our facility, we rejected that idea and placed our emphasis on quality.  We strongly felt that a need existed for a pet boarding facility offering comfortable, roomy accommodations and individualized "hands on care". 

And it was definitely a great place for Koda; we paid extra for him to get extra play time one-on-one with a worker there every day as well as for him to get an extra treat every day (one of those dog popsicle frozen type treats). We could have signed him up for doggie day camp where he could have intermingled without dogs but he doesn't play well with others so we nixed that idea.

He got a report card when he left and he got an A+; they said he did really well, enjoyed his play times, cooperated with them and they also said "he ate really well", hello, he's a corgi...........that says it all, LOL.

Worse thing he had to endure was a bath; we had him in there for three nights; that entitled him to a complimentary bath; I'm sure he didn't appreciate it at all, but we did.

And best of all, this place cost the same per night that the vet's office would have cost so its not like they charge an arm or a leg or a tail, but we did have to pay extra for the extra play time but that was okay and we did have to pay extra per day for bringing his own food, but I know dogs when stressed it affects their stomach so I figured having his own food was better than having him get some stomach problems especially since the next few days after we picked him up would be stressful with our move.

He loves his new backyard; these are pictures of him out there. Of course last night there was a cat in it and I called him outside to try to scare the cat away like he used to enjoy doing. He wouldn't focus on the cat, I kept trying to point it out to him. Finally had to pick him up and show him the cat and then he got excited, barked and chased the cat away. Wonder if it will come back (I'm sure it will).

 

 

 

 

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6:51:07 AM PDT
Feeling Happy

We are moved, thank you Lord, and thank you everyone for your prayers and well wishes.

It was an "easy" move if moves are easy. Last Wednesday and Thursday were stressful but the movers came Friday morning, got everything loaded on the truck in 2;5 hours, everything loaded off the truck in 1.5 hours and we had the majority of things unpacked by Friday/Saturday. We decided not to unpack my husband's business/college books as we had an extra bedroom to store the boxes in just in case we decide to move again in a year when this lease is up. Wise move on his part, I think.

The house is nice and I'll take pictures of it after we get our new couch/loveseat in a few days.

In the end, at the last minute just as the Lord told me that it would happen, my son got settled in with where he would be living. I stressed out so much about it that I had a major panic attack two Thursdays ago and poured my heart out to the Lord and he gave me a plan that with trepidation I presented to my husband, and surprisingly, thank you Lord, my husband went for; definitely an answer to prayer.

Basically, we decided to co-sign for him for an apartment for a period of time. He assures us he and his friends living there can come up with the rent; between the 3 of them it is "doable" if they manage their monies carefully. Without us co-signing, he could not qualify for anything based on no credit history and not a good enough income.

I could not bear to have him live with a friend in an apartment with the friend's mother, sister and brother as well as a couple that was renting out their other bedroom; he would be sleeping on a couch in the living room along with his friend (2 couches). Seven people would be sharing a 2-bedroom apartment with 1 bathroom. I knew that would get old soon.

Did I cave in? Yes. Was it wise for us to co-sign? Time will tell. I have to believe this is part of the Lord's plan because so many things fit into place. The rent on the apartment had been reduced by several hundred dollars, there was a VERY small deposit to get into the place, there were no application fees for applying for it, etc.

The house we rented here where we live came with a washer, dryer, fridge. I was going to give our washer, dryer and fridge away since I didn't want to store them for a year or so and I didn't want them in our garage here. Guess who needed a washer, dryer and fridge at his new place? My son got them.

Our couch, loveseat and recliner were at least 10 years old, showed lots of wear and tear and it was time to update them. Guess who got the old ones and we got to go out and buy what we wanted without thinking of wear/tear that kids would do to it.

The apartment he rented is huge; a 1-bedroom with over 800 square feet and a walk in closet that was big enough like a small bedroom. They wanted a 2-bedroom apartment, I said "no" you can work your way up to a 2-bedroom if you do fine in a 1-bedroom.

Three guys sharing; plenty of room. One (the friend who he would have stayed with on the couch) is happy to sleep on the couch at this apartment; the other guy will share the bedroom with my son.

They did all the moving themselves; my husband did help hook up the washer/dryer. He said it looked like a tornado hit the place when they moved in because they basically just threw boxes in and things on the floor, but a day later when we saw it, things were all in order.

Will he do good? I don't know, but we gave him a chance to try. If he fails, there are consequences we put in place on how we will get back our monies if we need to pay rent for them. I pray he will do good, but its time for him to learn how to be an adult.

As for me and my husband, we are enjoying our new place; Koda loves his backyard and new neighborhood. I think we'll be happy here. Went to a new church on Sunday, the pastor called us to welcome us there yesterday, someone brought a plate of cookies from the church to us last night and we got a welcome letter in the mail too from them. Is it where the Lord wants us? We'll see; I like a lot of their ministries and his sermon on Mother's Day was so relevant to me (I plan to share it in the next couple of days).

Its good to be back.

Just one more trip over the mountain today to do the walk through with our old place; the cleaning service we got did a great job, I'm thinking the carpet cleaners probably did just a fantastic job too.

Thank you Lord :) Help me with this new chapter of mylife; lead me to where you want me to serve.

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11:21:25 PM PDT
Feeling Mischievous

Koda is usually very predictable with his daily routine.  We take our morning walk, he gets a little treat when we get back (which is little these days since he's on a diet but he "expects" something) and then he will settle down for his morning nap.  He'll start by sleeping by me, then he'll move into his bed and sometimes he'll end up sleeping on the couch.

This morning, I heard him barking in the kitchen. I heard another dog barking but I thought perhaps Koda needed to go out to take care of "corgi business" so I got up to take a look.

He was just standing there by the kitchen counter where his treats are kept. I think he was wishing them to drop magically from the counter into his mouth.

He stayed there for a long time even when I petted him and told him no treats were coming.

He did the same thing this afternoon.

That dog is definitely food-driven. 

I'm turning alerts off until after we move since we're taking a mini-vacation starting Saturday and then next week will be our move and then I don't get Internet in our new place until mid-May.

Catch you on the other side of the mountain in our new city; looking forward to it.

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5:42:02 AM PDT
Feeling Happy

As everyone might be aware, the price of stamps goes up on May 12.  I knew it was in May but I emailed my brother who works for the post office and he said it was May 12.

Anyway, he said (and he said it was okay to tell everyone that it was not a well-kept post office secret) that if you buy the "forever stamps" (the ones with the bell on it) you pay the price now of stamps, but it will still be good when the postage goes up.  It was some type of marketing gimmick (his words) of the post office.

This is great news to me because I bought three pages of these (20 on a page) through my bank about 3 weeks ago and still had 2 pages left and was wondering if I was going to need to get penny stamps to make up the difference. (thank you Lord for meeting that need)

Just a money saving tip this morning. Enjoy the day.

 

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8:39:29 PM PDT

Connie at Anyway made this for me a few months back; thanks Connie.

I need to clean my cupboards out more often. I went through our medicine cupboard today and found a lot of expired medicine; no wonder my headache wouldn't go away the other day when I was taking ibuprofen from January of 2007.

Then I got into the spice cupboard where we also keep baking soda, baking powder etc.  I found a baking soda container that expired November of 1999, thankfully I didn't use it to make cookies. I'm thinking I probably didn't sort through these things before we moved from Montana or I wouldn't have had the packers pack it. I purged a lot of things; its amazing how an over-stuffed area could be now an empty area since I think I got rid of 2/3 of the things we had.

Interesting thing happened today when I was arranging for new phone service, Internet service and TV service at our new place.  We're going with Verizon because its either them or Time Warner and we can do a bundle where everything will be together including cell phones.

I started giving the guy from Verizon my street address and he lived on that street before!!! He told me the address of the house he lived in, when his dad bought the house, the high school he graduated from, told me some of the neighbors who might still be on the street.  Said it was a great street to live on and a wonderful neighborhood and that I would enjoy the city.  His dad sold that house and moved somewhere else in the city but he said it was a wonderful place to live. Told me the name of the restaurant where his sister works and its one of our favorite restaurants. Told me his sister's name and I said when we go there, I'll look her up.

And he didn't live in that city now. He lives up in Washington state somewhere, joined the military and ended up there, staying there because his children live there (he's divorced).

Now is that a God thing or what? I know it was not a coincidence I got this rep; I wasn't even planning to call Verizon to set up the phoneservice today but I had a few minutes after I got through eating lunch and the thought came to my mind "why don't you call Verizon?" So I did and I got that guy in Washington state who happened to have lived on that street years ago. Wow, thank you Lord! You knew I needed to hear that info!! Thank you Lord!!

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5:26:41 AM PDT
Feeling Quiet

I'm at the stage of our move where I'm disconnecting utilities on one end and getting ready to connect them at our new place.  I was happy that I could actually disconnect some of our services via the Internet and could do it in the evening instead of making phone calls during business hours where I have less time to do so due to my work schedule.

Yesterday I was disconnecting trash service here and when I called the office, all was fine until they asked me to verify the phone number I used to open the account. My mind went blank, actually it was blank before then, but for the life of me I could not remember my old cell phone number from Montana.  I remembered that was the number I used because I remembered that was the only number that would be a working number between our two residences before we got a land line at our new place.

I thought and thought; I could come up with Amy's cell phone number and my son's cell phone number but I finally told the person there was no way I was going to remember it and what was plan B? Unfortunately, there was no plan B and they were pretty adamant its remember that phone number or pay for trash at this address for the rest of my life.  They did say to have my husband call since the account was in his name and they would see what they could do, which made me laugh because if I couldn't remember a number, he wouldn't be able to either because even now with his new cell phone, he's constantly asking me what the number is.

For just a brief moment when I got off the phone, I felt a bit overwhelmed with this whole move and cried a few tears and then I asked the Lord to help me remember the number or to find the number. And a few minutes later, thank you Lord, I thought "I'll call Verizon and see if they have the numbers still on file".

It took me 10 minutes and 3 phone calls to get a real live Verizon rep and not an automated recording and I finally got someone in the sales department which I knew wouldn't be able to help, but they thankfully referred me to customer service.

Thankfully, I had a very nice customer service rep who took the time to look up our records and despite not finding it right away, eventually did.  She couldn't find all of our numbers at first, but asked me what day we had transferred service to new California numbers.  Surprisingly I could remember that day even though I couldn't remember my cell phone number. (It was July 4, 2006).

So she looked it up and lo and behold I got all our numbers (which I wrote down just in case) and I thanked her very much; thank you Brenda from Verizon and thank you Lord, and then called back the trash company and disconnected service.  I wanted to tell the people there that they might want to think of a different way to verify the account than a phone number since I'm sure I'm not the first one this has happened to or perhaps I am but I doubt it.

You know, I used to be able to be very good with numbers. I could remember a phone number the first time I heard it; back in the good old days. But age and stress has taken a toll on this brain of mine and I'm lucky if I can eventually remember numbers that I once knew like I knew the back of my hand. I've learned to write down things a lot more these days and not to rely on "I'll remember it" because chances are these days I won't remember it.

 

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1:41:53 PM PDT
Feeling Happy

After my dad died, of course my mom was devastated; she did not expect to be a widow at the age of 38 with 3 young children under the age of 5.  Thankfully, she still lived in the town that she had grown up with her extended family of sisters and brothers and mother and nieces and nephews all around her so they were of immense support to her.  Since my mom was the youngest in her family and married later in life, a lot of her sisters and brothers had married in their early 20s and had teenage sons and daughters who could babysit us or help with things around the home as well as my mom's own brothers helping too.

My mom was fiercely independent though and did not want to ask others to do things for her, she didn't want to take them away from their families or their work.

Life was challenging for her and the weather of Pennsylvania made it more challenging in the winter months with snow and cold weather, something she would grow to dislike strongly as each passing year went by after my dad died.  She didn't like driving in the snow, didn't like the ice on the road, having to park the car in the detached garage at the alley then shovel snow out to it in the morning or if she left the car on the street, have to allow time to remove the snow from it.  I remember the city had lots of hills in it and I remember my mom always worried she wouldn't make it up a hill and start sliding down it on ice/snow.  I remember her learning what hills were good ones to drive up and down even if it took her a few extra blocks out of her way.

In 1963, she had enough of the weather and started thinking about moving to California where I had an aunt live.  My mom and me made a trip out there to visit my aunt and check out the area.  We were gone for about 2-3 weeks; I was the lucky one to go because I was in kindergarten at the time and wouldn't miss that much school.  My brother and sister stayed with one of our aunts and her children.

During that time, when my brother was at my aunt's house, a china plate fell on his second toe on his left foot and cut it so deeply it almost got detached. He ended up being in the hospital for a whole month while they allowed it to heal after surgery.  I think it was a major procedure but because of the time (over 40 years ago) I think they were just more cautious about people going home so soon after an operation and because of the neurovascular nature of attaching the toe back on, I think they wanted to make sure he healed okay with no complications and/or infections. 

My aunt didn't tell my mom what happened when my mom would call to check in and my mom kind of wondered if something was up with my brother since he never seemed to be around to talk with her, but she had to have faith in my aunt taking the best care she could of my sister and brother. When we did make it back home, my mom was grateful my aunt hadn't said anything because she wasn't sure if she would have jumped on the next train home or what she would have done.

Two years later my mom was ready to make her move to California and on August 10, 1965 we arrived in San Diego via train.  Three days and three nights on a train across country with 3 children now 7 years old, 9 years old and 11 years old.  On top of that, I had broken my ankle the week before at a going away party our church group had for us so we traveled across country with me in a cast and crutches and I'm sure my mom over-stressed, but thankfully, thank you Lord, we got there in one piece.

The train station in San Diego is close by to the airport. After we got off the train and collected our baggage, our aunt met us.  As she didn't drive, she had a friend pick us up to take us to where we would be staying at a local motel until my mom found a place for us to rent.

As we got into the car and started driving away, a loud airplane went right over our car. You never saw three kids so scared by that loud noise. Eventually, of course, we would get used to the sounds and sights of living in a large metropolitan area.

Side note:  Due to our upcoming move and a mini-vacation my husband and me are taking this next weekend into early next week, M.O.M. Mondays will be on a brief hiatus until May 19th.

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5:25:07 AM PDT
Feeling Quiet

"The axe is already at the root of the trees and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire".  Matthew 3:10

Lord, I want to produce good fruit in my life, the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

If I don't produce fruit, that branch of mine should be cut off and thrown into the fire because it is worthless, not of any use, and does not further your kingdom, Lord.

The branch of

bitterness

envy

self-pity

anxiety

arrogance

pride

lying

unkindness

anger

fearfulness

laziness

These branches do not bear good fruit nor even fruit, they are dead, taking up worthless space on the vine, not furthering the kingdom at all.

Prune me, Lord, help me to get rid of the dead branches of my life - renew me with your Holy Spirit, fill me with your Holy Spirit, so I can have your love, your joy, your peace, your patience, your kindness, your faithfulness, your goodness, your gentleness and your self control.

Help me to be alive for you and dead to this world and preserve me for your glory, in Jesus' name I pray.

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7:20:13 AM PDT
Feeling Happy

This week's JLand Photo Shoot will begin today (Tuesday) and will be due on Saturday, April 26, at 11 PM Eastern Time.  That's Saturday, almost midnight, an hour before Sunday, for those of you who are getting confused!

            Our subject for this photo shoot is:

                                     Spring  

Living in Southern California, we have a perpetual spring and summer with plants blooming all year round.  Fall seems to last into winter as it takes sometimes into January and even February for some trees to shed their old leaves.  Winter can last just a day or so and then be followed by 80-90 degree weather in the midst of January.  We definitely don't have the dramatic changes of seasons like we did in Montana, but we do have trees getting their new buds, leaves changing in the fall.  All in all, it is a great place to live.

these was taken by one of the parks Koda and me walk through

 

play here

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5:26:23 AM PDT

Wow, look what I woke up to this morning

that was a surprise; Koda loved it, he ran through it like it was something he hadn't seen in 2 years

oops, just a dream

(note, it didn't really snow, LOL, this is an old picture from Montana; was thinking of a short cute entry to direct everyone over to Magic Smoke and I think the Lord placed this picture on my heart, LOL :)

Check out Magic Smoke; Koda and me are guest editors this week

Thank you everyone who told me what you do and where you live; that was fun; I enjoyed reading them all, those I knew, those I didn't know.

 

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