Emmett's visit to the vet

With our vet consult for Emmett being pushed back until today, I must say that the extra wait was worth it.

Emmett calmly trotted into the place without hesitation, which is saying something. At our current vet he cries and pulls and hides. He wants nothing to do with the place. You get your balls chopped off one time and apparently it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Or so I assume...seeing as I don't have balls to lose.

The receptionist came out and played with Emmett and he shared as many puppy kisses with her as he could. Amazing.

On the other hand it wasn't going perfectly for us, but that may be because our current vet never told us that we needed to pick up Emmett's x-rays to take in. Fail.

Emmett loved everyone there...except the doctor. But that may be because he had to pull and prod. Never fun for hurt puppy. Then they deiced to just take their own x-rays, which honestly we are fine with, because they are high tech and load them onto a computer...so they can actually send them other places with a lot more ease.

Then something even more amazing happened, the doctor actually talked to us and told us exactly what was going on and in terms we could understand. Whereas our personal vet and its doctors have been less than helpful. As in...the current doctor who treats him the most hadn't looked at the x-rays, never really told us what to expect, and never gave us options. Nothing. Suddenly this vet that we had been going to for two years was beginning to suck. So total shock when we were actually getting answers from this new vet.

Our vet made him go from bad, to okay, to worse, to dire.

Today's vet let us know that we could ride it out for a bit with what we are currently doing and by adding some things to our routine. Then he discussed the more major treatments (surgeries). We will have to do surgery, we just have to decided which will work best for us.

Honestly it's great to know that we can wait for a bit, which allows us to save for his hip replacement. And at a wopping $5000 for ONE hip, we're going to need to save. The doctor also gave us info for vets to look into for our coming move.

On a geek note, we got to play with the metal implant to see what it looks like and how it works. Pretty sure Nate would have pocketed it, to play with, if he could.

Oh, and when we went to pay...we realized that they didn't make us pay for the x-ray. Truly amazing and kind of them.

I feel better about all of this, knowing that we did nothing to cause this and that we have more options than what we were first given. On the other hand this great visit is making me give major side eye to our current vet. We're rather happy that we'll only have to deal with them for a few more months.

For shame Banana Republic

For shame!

I'm highly disappointed in how you ship things. Last week or so I bought a pair of earrings online when they were having 40% off of their jewelry. I've been in the market for more studs and loved these pearl earrings, because they look like a real pair I have that I don't wear all the time (for safe keeping).


Waiting at the door today was my package. I honestly was expecting it to be in my mail box, I mean they are studs after all.


Was there really a need for such a large box? One that I might expect to receive if I ordered a shirt or two. And for such a large box...did you think it was okay that the earrings just rattled around freely...protected by nothing more than a lackluster bubble wrap envelope?

Can you not afford padded envelopes? It would make shipping costs less for those that have to pay shipping and it wouldn't be such a waist. I mean come on...they are tiny! FAIL!


At least they are cute on!

And seeing as we're on the topic of you being full of fail...I think you're running out of ideas for your jewelry.


Does it look familiar? No? Well it does to me.

Humor me and follow me to my jewelry drawer.


A few of those look like your earring? Well lets get a closer look...


Oh yeah those would be earrings I bought from you a few years ago. I knew there was a reason I was taking a break from you. You just find ways to keep disappointing me. Remember when you were awesome a few years ago? When you had a good mix of products, it was built well and you really cared about your customer? Can we go back to that? And seriously can someone have an original thought?

Some things around the bedroom

Our room doesn't have a whole lot of cohesiveness right now, but it's to be expected when you are working on changing the over all look. Then again you're talking to the girl who's high school bedroom was covered in stuff. I had a whole wall turned into a cork board because I had so much stuff on my walls. So the fact that I'm no longer living/sleeping in a cluttered mess is really saying something. I've come a long way.

Now while I will love to add more grey and yellow to the room, I will always keep certain things in the room, even if they don't "match". Some things are there because they are pretty and others have been added for storage.


On the far dresser you may have noticed these perfume bottles. They are something I collect. There is a glass blower at the local Renaissance Fair in Colorado, who makes beautiful vases (which my mom use to collect). Well he also makes these perfume bottles. I love the colors and of course beautiful glass work. The clear perfume bottle was my mom's. It still has the scent in it, which is something that reminds me of her. The elephant was once silver, but now tarnished. He was a gift to my mom many years ago and he now lives with me. He sits upon a wood cigar box, which holds some of my many vintage brooches. I absolutely love cigar boxes. They can be well built and have a nice smell to them (I love how cigars smell).


Nate's catch-all, which was moved into the bedroom from the kitchen. Sometimes he has the issue of not using the catch-all and misplaces things. I thought that it might work better for him if it was in the bedroom and so far it's working. He can toss his wallet, phone, keys and watch there and know where everything is. The coin is from his old Air Force Academy squadron and of course you can never not have play-doh around.

I also finally moved my perfumes into the bedroom. Before they were sitting on a ledge in the bathroom and would get hit with some direct sunlight...which is never good. Now they all live very happily in this mirrored tray that I got at Target. The tray is also right next to my jewelry armoire, so I can get fragrance on before jewelry. Which is always good...especially for the pearls.

Those are a few things that make our room...ours. Sooner or later we'll actually get around to printing out wedding photos and have them hanging in the room.

Wants for the house in CO

The post about my home in Colorado really got me thinking about everything we want to do with the house. I know it's two years away, but I can dream and dream I will. I want to mess with the downstairs the most (with thoughts traveling to the two upstairs bathrooms). I wanted to share some of my hopes for updates to make the house a home.

As a refresher here are some pictures of the house...for reference (and my enjoyment).


This is what you see when you first walk in (both the living room, dining room and kitchen in far back).

What been done:
~Painted the wall that separates the living area from the kitchen.
~Changed the light fixture in the dining area.

What we want to change:
~Paint the wall with the window (in one of the striping colors) so that the dining area seems more like its own space.
~Window treatments.
~Pull out carpet and put in wood floors.


What's been done:
~Changed out light with a pot rack that also has a light in it.

What we want to change:
~Put in stone or tile floors (also in half bath).
~New sink
~Counter tops and back splash.
~Paint


What's been done:
~Changed light over front door.

What we'd like to change:
~Cover ledge in stone or tile (who puts painted wood right behind the sink!?)
~Tile/stone at front entrance area (or just extend the wood?).
~Change the ceiling fan.
~Drapes.
~You can't see it, but to the left of the wall there is a garage entrance that would also get tile/stone.

So there are my wants. Now here are a few things I am drooling over...

Tile ideas (because I just can't figure out what to do in the kitchen area):


Wood flooring (we're pretty much set on dark/black wood because it's perfect for how much light the house gets):


Well there are some of the things we want to do.

Bedroom redo

Man last week was a little crazy for me. Nate went off to Cali yet again for work, which of course left me here. Lets just say I was a smidgen on edge after what I went through with Emmett the last time Nate left.

No issues with the dog meant that I got to get a lot done in our bedroom. Talk about a place that gets neglected every step of the way. It's the one room we tend to ignore the most, which is sad seeing as it's our personal space. I guess what I am trying to say is that I got tired of us living out of laundry hampers when we have two perfectly working dressers.

When we moved to our current location we were living in sin...but that's another topic. We were living with all of my furniture, which is great, but we had been talking about upgrading our bed size from a queen to a cal king. After much debate we found a set that we both loved and we went for it. It was our first purchase of furniture that was for us.

Having a new bed of course meant that we needed new bedding. No issues there...right? Wrong. I could not find a bedding set that I liked, which meant that our nice new bed was covered with scrap blankets. I finally found a set at Macy's and while I didn't love it, I knew it would work for the time being.


That is what our room looked like up until yesterday...okay not exactly...I threw the bed together right before I stripped it down to make way for the new (I wanted to give you all a before image). So pretend that it looks super happy and cheerful and well made. Got the image? Great!

I love green, sometimes too much and honestly I wanted to get away from a green theme in the room. After two years with this bedding I started my search...for grey and yellow. That color combo makes me drool and has for a long long time, as in before it was popular and played out. Of course it wasn't an easy combo to come by, but search I did. I finally found the perfect look form Blissliving. Now I wish I could say I pounced on it, but instead I hemmed and hawed over it. I looked elsewhere. I always came back to the bedding from them. Then on our last trip to Colorado I found it at The Great Indoors. It was the first time I had seen it in person and I fell hard. Of course I didn't get it...I'm crazy. I was iffy about the price and wanted to price compare. Low-and-behold when I took Nate to see it...it was 30% off! Score!

I've been holding onto it for awhile...because I was thinking I wouldn't put it out till we moved, but we both agreed we needed something to freshen up our room. That finally happened this weekend when I did a HUGE bedroom cleaning. I purged more clothing and stuff...I vacuumed under the bed as best as I could...I did bucket of laundry...reorganized all of our drawers...move pictures around...mopped/polished the floors...organized our closet. Everything that could be done was done. To top it off I switch out the bedding...finally. I thought it would be a great treat for Nate to come home to, especially after a long week of FUBAR. Heheh...I knew I could get that term in here somewhere!

Finally...the "after". Now keep in mind we rent and cannot paint, so the paint that is there is not our doing. Also, with this room redo we are in major need of art. That's not going to happen right away, but it will happen!


There's our room! It feels so bright...but that may also be because I opened the windows. Yeah we don't do that a lot because our house backs up to a road and people walking by can look straight into our backyard and in turn our windows.

The crazy part of me wants a rug, but I know that we won't need one when we finally end up in our final destination. All in all I love love love the look. I know that I will be able to do so much with it when we are back in Colorado. Maybe a yellow wall? Artwork of course!

So there you have it! My week long project of cleaning, organizing and a new look.

Like what you see...here's a list of things in our room.

Metal letters above our bed~ Anthropologie
Original bedding~ Style & Co. from Macy's
New bedding~ Blissliving "Ashley Citron"
Furniture~ Pottery Barn Sumatra Collection
Table Lamps~ Pottery Barn
Jewelry Armoire~ Pier One (no longer available)
Yellow/grey pillows~ Dwell for Target

After these messages...

I swear that after today I will get back into regular blogging! I have been working on a project/decorating that I want my husband to see before I share it all with you.

He's been out of town yet again and I am picking him up later today. I pinky promise that by tomorrow you will see what I have been up to.

On a less than fun note, tomorrow is Emmett's consultation for hip replacement. I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well and that everything will work out, especially with everything we have coming up. Life never stops...but that's what reminds us that we are alive.

To suck up for my lack of posting and gratuitous picture of the one and only light of our lives...


Until tomorrow!

Formspring

Hey everyone! Just wanted to stop in and say that I have joined the wonderful world of Formspring!

What does that mean?

Now if you have a question...no matter what it is, you can go and ask me! I have a link set up in my side bar to make it easy to find. So if you have a pressing question for me, get on it, because I'd love to answer!

Blogs to harass

I've been holed up in the bedroom trying to get some stuff done. I honestly have lost track of time for the past few days. While I don't have anything amazing to talk about...I wanted to point you to two wonderful blogs that I love reading. They both just got 50 followers and have decided to each have a give away! Check them out!

A Little Bit of Everything: Just like her title says...you can find a little bit of everything over there, but a lot of fashion and beauty! Such a fun blog!

The Pretty Pauper: She has outfits of the day...which I always love seeing! She's a Coloradoan...which makes me love her even more! I also love that she talks about the randomness that you may see in her photos.

Got check them out...follow...enter to win goodies!

Award!

I must say...I am very lucky to have so many wonderful blog readers and in turn many of those readers have some fabulous blogs! Because of that I have received another blog award! I feel very lucky to have so many people who enjoy what I write about. It makes me feel a little less crazy knowing that others actually like what is going on in my head!

Without further ado my newest award!

How I met my house

Never ending house work

Our house is a disaster...and that is being kind. I'm cleaning, but it's hard to tell. I'm the kind of cleaner that rips everything apart and then puts it back in place. It always gets worse before it gets better. If you clean like it do, then you understand.

Why all the cleaning?

Hopefully I can share that with you all soon. For now it's just a lot of cleaning. Right now I am filling Rubbermaid boxes with clothing that doesn't currently fit me. Don't you dare tell me to get rid of it. My skinny clothing is one of the things that keeps me going with this weight loss goal. I have some fabulous pieces that I'm just not willing to give up. Maybe I won't like them when I fit into them again...but dang it I am not taking any chances!

Don't worry though...I did thin some of the clothing out for donation. I already had one huge donation pile and am working on another pile! I'm very proud of the fact that I am able to get rid of so much stuff. I'm usually such a pack rat, but I'm having to be logical about it now (especially with the military lifestyle).

In between packing boxes and doing laundry I was able to fit in some Wii Fit time. Luckily I am holding pretty steady with my weight loss. Always a good thing if you ask me! Today Emmett was being extra helpful with my weigh in...

As soon as I pull the board out Emmett usually decides to lay next to it and watch me. Every once-in-awhile I have to shoo him away because he has rested his head on the board and made my weight balloon up a few extra pounds. Pounds I do not want added!

A little pretty vintage

I'm in need of something pretty to look at, today is feeling like a Monday and I need to shake those blues. I figured what better than a beautiful vintage dress to fill the need of pretty things? I still have a few more to share (crazy I know).

Today's dress is heavy. I mean that in the best way possible. With the crazy amount of beading it has on it...it could easily weigh over 5lbs! The crazy thing about it is that someone actually made the skirt shorter on it, so I can't even begin to guess how heavy it actually was. The fabric is heavy as well, which isn't too shocking with the copious amounts of beading the fabric has to hold up to. In person it is a beautiful dusty sage green dress that is easily from the 50's. It looks as though every bead and twist of ribbon was hand applied. They don't make them like this anymore!

Stolen photography

I'm part of a blogging community and was looking around their forum, that's how I found out that a very talented photographer, Melissa Papaj, is having her photos used without her consent. Now I know a lot of you will say...it's the internet, everything is up for grabs. I say it's still not right. What makes this even worse is that her photography is being stolen by another "photographer" who is playing it off as his own work (you can see the site here).

This is sickening, saddening and apparently not the first time this photographer has done this.

Why am I writing about this? Because I feel that people should know about this deceitful person. Also, once upon-a-time I use to love photography and was actually good at it and if I ever had my work stolen I would be devastated. He is apparently located in San Diego...so if you're out there and need a photographer stay away!

No one deserves to have their hard work stolen, especially when it's being used in hopes of getting jobs (and money).

If you're in Utah and need a photographer, I would recommend Melissa Papaj, her work is beautiful and is her own.

It's the small things

Today I didn't not hate my Wii as much as I might have a few days ago. I have lost 3lbs, which makes me happy! I also stayed and worked out on the Wii for 30 minutes, and while I know that may not be the same as 30 minutes at a gym, it's pretty dang good for me!

I did a medium grocery shop this past Wednesday and I am very proud of myself. I went in hungry which we all know is probably the dumbest move ever. Yet I stuck to my guns and pretty much only shopped the outside of the store...you know...where most of the healthy stuff is. Lots of fruit and fresh veggies found their way home and we even tried ground turkey for our tacos. HUGE step for us.

I've also rediscovered granola and how much I like it. Lets just say my body thanks me for the extra fiber and leave it at that.

All and all I am happy with the path that I am on. I think I'm not freaking out because I haven't gone over the top with the changes in my diet. I've added good things, while just taking in less of the bad.

I'm still wanting to go swimming, but Nate and I are going to have to figure out a schedule for that because we can't currently leave Emmett at home alone. None of us are up for unneeded vet visits when we have a bunch of scheduled ones coming up.

I needed this little weight loss to keep me going.

Another award! Squeeeee!

I just received two...yes two blogger awards in one day! Can we talk about excitement!? I've got the warm and fuzzies knowing that people read and enjoy this blog. Seeing as I received two...I want to split them into two different posts.

One of the awards that I received is The Beautiful Blogger Award from the lovely Lindsay over at Canadian Girl on a Budget.

Where am I?

Don't worry I'm not lost. I've just wandered away to another blog.

As in I am guest posting over at Posh Pieces! Seriously go...enjoy her blog and read my guest post! It's awesome!

Lets just say that it's yet another craft that I made...

I hope you like it!

Trying out breakfast

I weighed myself today...which was the first time I have done so in four days. I'm holding steady at my 186. Apparently lifting and carrying around a 30lb dog was not quite the workout I thought it was going to be. Though my arms do beg to differ.

I actually woke up earlier than usual today so that I could fix myself an omelet with spring onions and tomato. In all honesty I am not a morning person nor a breakfast eater. I've never liked how breakfast has made me feel if I eat before 9am (my stomach is never feels right). I want to be able to eat breakfast...so we'll see if I can work my way into eating without feeling sick.

I am excited about the fact that I bought a big tub of yogurt and I split it up into separate containers and added fresh strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. I also have granola to sprinkle on the top.

I'm trying really hard to be better about my snacking habits, because I know that is one of the things that is truly biting me in the butt.

I'm busy working on some things around the house...so just maybe you can expect a post later about something I am working on!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Relaxing...what is that?

Well the husband is home from his trip to Cali. Oh did I forget to mention that through everything with Emmett I was alone...yeah only a lot stressful. Of course now that Nate is home, Emmett is feeling better and actually walking and doing bodily functions on his own. I'm trying not to be biter about this, but this is pretty common with our relationship with Emmett. I get all of the awful heartbreaking crap to deal with and Nate gets awesome happy Emmett.

I'm amazingly happy that Emmett is feeling better and that Nate is home, because it means that I can work on a project (which I am very excited about). Don't worry I will share it with you very soon!

I also wanted to share that a favorite blog of mine is doing an awesome giveaway. Head over to Deconstructed Life and follow her! You won't be sorry!

Have a great Sunday!

What's in my purse and random update