Gina and the Weed Stalk

It is definitely well into spring here in southern Utah. It's actually getting hot. I hope we aren't skipping spring and going straight into June. As our summers have the ability to set your hair on fire the moment you walk out your front door, spring time is something we really like to keep around for a while.

But the lovely things of Spring are starting to appear and that makes me happy. Flowers on the trees, frogs croaking in my back yard, walks in the park. This makes me excited for another year of picnics and camping and watermelon and BBQ's and outdoor family time. One of the times of year that I love to spend with my family is aloof. Hopefully some of them will come down and hang out with us. Maybe even go see a misty waterfall or something. Hint, hint, you know who you are.

The things I dread are also making themselves known. Yesterday I was spraying weed killer and it got too hot for comfort. A reminder that the deadly heat that makes things a little miserable at my place is knocking on my door. You see, the heat might not be so bad if it weren't for my yard. My yard takes hours of maintenance every week. In the summer, this is not fun. I have almost not made it into the house because I was starting to see black spots from the heat. And that was after only 15 minutes of work.

I love my yard. But I also loath it. The weeds. Have I mentioned the weeds? Imagine a forest. It's full of weeds. And for some crazy reason you have to pull all of them. And when you're finally half way done after hours and hours and hours of pulling and digging and sweating? You turn around, and the weeds are already starting to grow back. You will NEVER catch up. It's like trying to scoop all of the water out of the ocean with a teaspoon. This is my life. No matter how much pulling and spraying and ground sterilizing and work, I will never catch up. I used to not be a winter person. I LOVED summer. Lived for it. It made me feel alive. Now? Those 2 months of cold we have are my only relief. And summer is out to do me in.

And it has begun. The weeds are creeping in rather quickly. The water bill will begin to sky rocket. My break is over. I guess my only option is to get on top of it and try to focus on the good things, because really, there are SO many good things.

This year Cody is armed with a weed whacker. Hopefully this helps!

Moxie Owl Update

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that we are going to run the Moxie Owl store exclusively through Etsy starting this month. The moxieowl.com official website will no longer be in service. If you have links to our store on your page, first of all THANK YOU! This really does help our traffic more than you know.

Secondly, in the near future the links on those buttons will no longer work. If you would be so kind as to re-add the button with the new link I have created below, it would really really help us out. Really. (The html grab does not show in Google reader, so please go to the actual blog to grab it.)

Thank you again. We truly appreciate your effort!!

Spring is here again

Spring
=
Bees buzzing in the apricot tree

The color green



Time Outdoors



Beauty in nature




Back yard fires
{The fire spit out sparks and Cody made this cool face}



Creepy girls in bushes taking pictures of you. (Oh, that's just at my house?)


Warm weather is here and we are taking advantage of it where we can. Before we left for California we spent a little time by the fire pit. It was lovely. We love having a fire pit!

Cody and I started on the 2nd annual family health diet on Monday and we are both dropping a few pounds already. Hopefully I can do better than last year and stick to things now that I have Cody's support. It is a lot more work to make snacks and lunches and dinners every day instead of just going to taco bell, but it feels really good at the same time. My body was tired of junk, and definitely addicted to it. I can tell that I am detoxing a bit by the way my head aches and I get nauseated out of nowhere. My goal is about 40 pounds. So please don't offer me donuts or anything. :)

My poor, poor dog

Meet Lulu Belle. She is a chihuahua and she has problems. We have had our little baby lulu since she was a puppy 3 years ago and since then she has probably been to the vet way more than most dogs her age.

{Lulu was actually not feeling well in this photo}

Seriously. If there is something that can go wrong with a dog, it has or probably will happen to her. When we first got her she seemed fine. Then about a month later it started. She began hiding under our bed and not wanting to play anymore. She would just sit under there and shiver like she'd been beaten. Fast forward 3 months, after visiting the vet almost once or twice a week, after blood tests of all kinds, and after so much worry, she was diagnosed with canine lupus. Since then she has been taking a small dose of steroids every day and she is fine as long as she gets her pill. She also developed a bald spot on her head and a small one on her leg (lupus can cause hair loss).

She had poop problems for a long long time and had to take pro biotics for that. After a couple years she got over that problem. She also has patella luxation. This is when her knee cap dislocates and it is a common health issue in chihuahuas.

She throws up a lot. Like a couple times a week. For a while it was all the time though. She has little white spots in her eyes that the vet calls "lipids" or something like that. She can still see but it's like looking through a snow storm for her.

Since she jumps off our really high bed, she has back problems which causes her to loudly yelp in pain when we pick her up sometimes. It scares the crap out of me every time.

She can't get certain vaccinations because she is allergic to them and develops a large lump for months where the needle went in.

Not to mention the horror that was her potty training. That poor apartment will never smell right again. Also, sometimes people call her fat, which I don't think she appreciates.

Honestly, when we got a dog I had no idea that I would have to visit the vet this many times to keep her alive. But when I get a pet I am a person who doesn't give up on that pet because they are now a part of the family and I have a responsibility to take care of them. (nothing against people who do have to give up their pet, I totally understand). But if I had the great idea to bring the pet into our home in the first place, then I need to take care of them to the best of my abilities. No giving up. If it turned out that lulu's health problems were going to require a surgery that would cost thousands of dollars, I would have her put down. I'm not crazy. But I will shine it on through most anything else. She is my furry child.

Anyway. Wednesday night I was looking at her teeth. I started removing some of the build-up on her teeth when suddenly one of them came out with very little effort. I was horrified. My 3 year old dogs teeth are just falling out of her head. Willy Nilly, I might add. This was not good. I started panicking a bit. I was a bad mother. I was supposed to be brushing her teeth and I had giving up on this long ago because she wouldn't have it. And now her teeth were rotting. Beyond rotting. Cody woke up to me crying to him. He comforted me and told me we would both go to the vet the next day. Later the next day he told me that when he woke up for work he hadn't remembered what happened until it slowly started coming back to him. Something about waking up to his wife crying about Lulu's teeth falling out and us not having enough money and how I am a terrible dog mother. Either a weird, messed up dream or a weird, messed up reality.


So today lulu is at the vets all by herself getting her teeth cleaned and 9 of them removed. Apparently Chihuahua's are known for having "chihuahua teeth" which sometimes have genetic problems. This made me feel better about my poor dog parenting. She will be able to eat normal food in about a week or so.

I am just thankful that I have her still after all that she has been through and that most of the time she is a happy little peanut. And more so that I have a husband that loves her just as much as I do and doesn't want to just shoot her. He is always fully supportive of keeping her around for as long as we (and she) can.

I looked out the window...

Ahh, spring. A time for blooming blossoms and a feeling of freshness. Also one of the few times of the year my neighbors can spot me jumping up and down under a tree with a pair of pruners bobbing dangerously over my head.

I love to decorate my home using things from nature, which means I have to clip some branches from my trees every once in a while. Which means I have to jump high enough to get my pruners around the branch and clip it all at once. This is hard. And it probably looks pretty ridiculous. I get winded after just a few jumps, and then I start looking like a muppet person flopping to and fro under the branches. But the apricot blooms adorning my house and the lovely smell they make is all worth it.