Laurie, Fudge, and Vern's Blog (342)

This blog doesn’t really have much to do about dogs, except I think of lots of these things while out walking with them.  It’s when I do my best thinking and lately, I have been thinking that I’m falling farther behind with all the new technology.  Hayley and I went on a road trip this weekend to North Carolina to visit my grandson and everything about the GPS I used got on my nerves.  I remember the days when we just used a map and the hardest thing about it was figuring out how to re-fold…

December was an exciting month for us.  Last Christmas was the first Christmas our family was split apart for the holidays because of distance, so whatever I say from this point on, just know I wouldn’t have it any other way.  At the beginning of December, Megan and Doc arrived home in the middle of the night with Archer and their two French Bulldogs.  Megan and Doc have long been night owls and when they visit, it is not uncommon for them to go out around 10 pm and arrive back home long…

Every year at this time I get a little sad, but not for reasons most people would think.  Sure the holidays are over and I have to put everything away, but that’s not it, although I do hate that job.  For a couple of months now, I have spent almost every night going to bed with a Hallmark Christmas movie and now it’s all over.  Yes, my name is Laurie and I am addicted to Hallmark Holiday movies.  I know some people complain about Christmas coming too soon in stores and on television, but…

I am married to a “pass the buck” man and I don’t mean a man who is passing out money.  When the kids were little, he thought nothing of throwing them under the bus if it meant he could stay out of trouble.  I could walk into the kitchen and find him eating a peanut butter sandwich with peanut butter on every drawer knob and him holding the knife and he would still try and say it was the kids who did it. I have long told him he would never be successful as a criminal because the evidence he…

Another week has almost gone by and another trip to Indiana for me.  This time I had to drive my aunt home from Thanksgiving and my good friend, Rose, agreed to go with me.  I need to start off by saying everyone needs a friend like Rose.  Twice she has made these long trips with me to keep me company and the time flies when we travel together and the ten-hour trip goes by in a flash.  I am so used to one word answers when I travel with John, that sometimes I find myself saying, “really,…

It all began with a basketball game.  My aunt is here from Indiana celebrating the holidays with us.  This is the first year without my Uncle Bob and it feels so different, but we are so glad that my aunt made it out here.  Even more so since our 70 degree weather at the beginning of the week turned to a nasty snowstorm on the day she was flying in.  It’s a good thing John is not a meteorologist because he kept saying the snow wouldn’t stick because of the high temperatures we had earlier in…

Lately, I don’t seem to know if I am coming or going.  In the past two weeks, I have been to North Carolina to help Megan and Doc unpack and to Indiana to see my mom.  John was along for the trip to North Carolina, but the Indiana trip was by myself.  The older I get the longer the drive seems and when you are by yourself the drive can be endless.  I used to be able to get up at 3 am and drive the 10 hours without missing a beat, but now my recovery time is longer and I stay with a sister…

I hear it said all the time that two dogs entertain each other, but that is not the case with Fudge and Vern.  I have never seen my two nudge each other to go play outside or work on a puzzle indoors.  Instead it seems, when they get bored, they might feed off the other’s energy, but mostly they double team me and follow me around like I am in charge of activities.  Most days, I don’t need a clock in the house to know it is getting around to walk time, because they box me in when I am moving…

Well, we are back and I think we would all say the trip was a rousing success.  I still don’t know quite how it happened last year, but I was assigned the job of planning this year’s trip and I have no problems admitting Jane did a better job.  I did not want to pick the location and have all the Doodlers show up at the location and give their best imitation of Jeff Probst and say, “we hate this place and we are voting you off the island!”…

My dogs are pretty easy going at home, but they do expect two walks per day.  Fudge would be willing to let me slide on the walks, but Vern is unrelenting and there are no excuses that he is willing to hear when it comes to those walks.  We walk in all kinds of weather and I could rival the postal system delivering mail when it comes to our daily schedule because neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the…

It’s no secret that we recently became grandparents and just got back from Oregon after our first visit with little Archer. 

The week before the visit I was in a panic about my dogs.  My regular pet sitter only watches dogs in the summer and has…

My mom and I have always had a love/like relationship when my dogs are involved.  I love my Doodles and my mom likes them.  My mom isn’t a dog person and doesn’t really understand my fascination with dogs.  We are not sure at this point what kind of person my mom is, because dogs and babies are really not her thing.  Since Megan had her baby, my mom has taken to reminiscing about the pitfalls of motherhood.  Just the other day she was telling me she realized early on that having kids might…

Yes, little Archer Ford is here.  He arrived on Tuesday after keeping us waiting for a long time.  Megan was induced Monday night and I woke up on Tuesday expecting a baby, only to find out not much was happening.  As the day stretched into night, it became apparent to me that my future grandson did not realize that his grandma was very impatient and did not like to be kept waiting.  I even texted my son-in-law around 4 pm that this kid was really starting to get on my nerves, hoping he…

I am due to be a grandma almost any day now.  My daughter is overdue by a few days and no matter how hard she thinks this pregnancy has been on her, it has been equally hard on me.  My daughter and I have a love/hate relationship.  I love to give advice and she hates to hear it.  I never got the memo that said moms are supposed to just listen, nod their head, and respond with nothing that amounts to actual words.  Megan is a researcher and I am a doer.  When she tells me she has researched a…

When I was younger, I used to love gymnastics.  I took gymnastics lessons and even spent a couple of summers at gymnastics camp.  Unfortunately, when you are tall as I was as a kid, it didn’t take a genius to realize that I didn’t really have a future in gymnastics, when I could place both hands on the top bar of the uneven parallel bars and still have my feet on the floor.  If I would have tried one of those fancy dismounts where I spun round and round from the top bar, I would have been…

Remember the blog I just wrote where I got all touchy feely about sleeping with Fudge?  Well, scratch what I said and let me start over.  Circumstances have changed here and I now want to keep Fudge in a crate at night so she cannot touch me.  I think once I get done with my story, everyone will agree with me.

The other night, John had a business dinner and the dogs and I were home alone.  Now, normally this is a good thing, because when John says he won’t be home for dinner,…

I have never had a problem sleeping.  My oldest sister reads a book while she walks, can’t sit still for a minute and thinks naps are a waste of time.  We once went on a ski trip with her and her family and I felt like I was at boot camp with Jillian Michaels or the Energizer Bunny.  We would finish one activity and she would immediately want to know what we were doing next.  If I said we were going to our room to relax, she wanted to know for how long and if I gave her any kind of a…

Not long ago, Cheryl (and Finnegan) asked me if I would be interested in meeting DJ (and Chance), who was coming into Philadelphia.  Since I love meeting DK members and Cheryl, DJ, and I all started with Camilla’s photography classes at the same time and developed a bit of camaraderie, I was thrilled to accept the offer.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to meet the mysterious DJ?  I have long wondered about her initials and whether or not DJ was running from the law, leading some sort of double…

Right off the bat, I am going to tell you that I hate the name “alpha”.  In fact, I would go so far as to say I don’t care for the names Spanky, Darla, Buckwheat, or Porky, either.  Now, before you start yelling at me that I mean to say Alfalfa and not Alpha, I know that, but I like to open with a joke. I also know very little about The Little Rascal kids, but I am betting Alfalfa is the one with the hair that sticks up.  The reason I have deduced that is, because on several…

I am jumping on the bandwagon and hoping to get a blog in edgewise.

Have you ever had one of those weeks that if you had to go back and do it again you absolutely wouldn’t?  Well, this has been my week and I would like to exchange it for a better week.  In the scheme of things, it wasn’t any one moment that made it bad, but a series of annoyances that have added up and because I rarely suffer in silence, I am going to share it here.  I love going to the movies, but at times…