Author: Dackel Princess

Meme X 5

5 THINGS

I have been tagged by Maribeth (yes, another Maribeth!) to do a meme. Since she and I are name-twins, how could I possibly refuse?

5 Things found in my bag (purse)

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In my purse right now

1… My Weight Watchers cards! They mean so much to me and I look at them often to remind myself of how many small goals I have reached.

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2… My small photo album with pictures of Hubby and Amanda and the pups.

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3… My wallet.

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4… Dachshund date book.

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5… My bifocal sunglasses. This way I can read a map in the car!

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5 Favorite Things In your Room

1… Hubby

2… Fritz

3…Greta

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4… Anneliese

5… Arnie

5 things you always wanted to do

1… Travel all through Europe for a year or more.

europe-map

2… Take a cruise down to South America and then take a land tour to Machu Picchu.

Machi Pichu

3… Take a cruise that goes out to the Galapagos Islands, then spend time there seeing everything!

Galapagos

4… Go to Australia and see as much as I can before getting onto a cruise and cruising the coast of Australia as well as New Zealand.

Australia and new zealand

5… Visit Asia. Starting in China and going all down the coast.

Asia tour

5 things you are currently into

1…Hubby and me. My marriage is at the top of all my lists.

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2… My photography.

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3… My garden.

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4… My dogs, and raising healthy puppies.

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5… Planning on what we will can from this years harvest!

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5 People you want to tag:

Anyone who would like to do this. Let me know and I will link to your blog.

Michele at Smoochdog has joined the Meme. Go on over and check her Meme answers out!

Happy Meme-ing!!!

As always click on any picture to enlarge it.

Rain & Big Bellies

The day dawned dark and dreary. Rain was forecast and by the time Hubby and I finished our breakfasts, the rain had started to fall. Hubby was out tending his apple trees in the rain, while I took our laundry down to the laundry room in the basement and sorted it all out.

As I was looking around the laundry room I noted that the winter had not been kind to it, and I needed to spend some time cleaning it up and organizing it once again. While I spoke to my sister on my cell phone, I cleaned and put things away and got the room actually looking presentable.

Then while the machines whirred and groaned cleaning and drying my clothes, I came upstairs and worked on vacuuming. One thing is for sure, when you own 4 dogs, and both you and your Hubby garden and work in the yard, there is no end to the dirt that gets tracked into the house! It used to bother me, but now, well if I can vacuum a couple of times a week, then I feel I have done well.

The rain continued as the afternoon wore on and before we knew it the kids arrived here after school. Hubby worked with the twins on their reading and I helped Em get her eye drops in.

One thing that I have to share with you all is something about Greta. Today I was patting her belly and I could feel a nice round little package in there. It is so totally different than it feels when she is not pregnant, so I am hoping that perhaps I have felt the babies before anyone else. Just two more days and we will find out!

Mari, Mari, How Does Your Garden Grow? (2008)

Today was the day I set aside for planting the seeds for this years Dackel Princess Garden. This is the third year I have gardened here at the Dackel Princess Home. Quite honestly, I still feel very much like a newcomer to the, ah, sport (?) of gardening. There is just so much I do not know.

For instance, why oh why can’t I get my eggplant plants to sprout? I have done three separate plantings in the green house, and so far….nothing! It’s a mystery I hope to have solved today with my most recent planting.

I planted my Butternut Squash, my Zucchini Squash, my Summer Squash, and both regular and pickling Cucumbers. I re-potted my tomato plants and for now have left my green pepper plant to abide in it’s store bought pot for a bit. My Basil plant is also doing very well. It seems to love the green house.

All of this playing in the dirt produced a rather messy green house once I was done. The planting table was a wreck, the floor, well lets just say that a Robin could easily have started searching for worms there, and found some, as there was that much dirt. So I got out the broom and dust pan, and also the industrial shop vacuum. By the time I was done it looked so good I decided to take a few pictures to show you all.

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My Poinsettia from Christmas, the Green Pepper Plant, The Eggplants, All the Squash and Cucumbers and my Basil plant. Outside the green house you can see the white mouse guards on our fruit trees.

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The three Tomato plants.

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Looking down the potting table.

I’m pleased with my plantings and re-pottings for today. I just hope that Mother Nature will be with me and give me a lot of sunshine and pleasant temperatures to warm the green house and germinate those seeds. We can’t plant outside until the first of June due to the fear of frost.

Are any of you doing gardens this year? If so, what are you planting and how long is your growing season?

I am thinking that I will plant all of this on one day and then Greta will have her pups the next. That is…..if she is pregnant……. which we will find out for certain on Wednesday.

Or have I mentioned that before???? LOL!!!

I Feel Good!!!

I started Weight Watchers right after the New Year. I had been planning it for a couple of months because when we arrived home after our cruise I realized that my backside was not the size it once was!

I think I have tried every diet known to man. I think I have lost thousands of pounds over the last 49 years of my life. This time I decided that I needed something more permanent, something akin to AA, because yes, I am a food addict. I love to cook and I love to eat!

So I started. My first meeting was scary, but I went and weighed in and made it through. I came home planning each and every thing I would eat the next day and I started keeping a food journal.

And little by little, inch by inch, pound by pound, the weight started to come off. I did very well in January and February and then March and April were sort of slow, but my weight loss has picked up again and as of last Wednesday I have now lost 29.8 pounds!

I have 23 pounds to go until I reach my goal weight, and I feel pretty sure that I can and will do it. Spring is here, I’m doing more things outside, I will start my seeds for the garden tomorrow and plant them outside on the first of June, just before the puppies come. (That is, if Greta is, in fact, pregnant)

Hubby is taking a real notice of my weight loss and I think he likes the new slender me! Or perhaps I just like myself a little better. I wasn’t happy with the extra weight and I sure feel better about myself now.

MB April

So I am a happy, slimming woman, whose dog is possibly pregnant. Does life get any better than that?

Oh Spring……how I love thee!

It was another beautiful, warm day and we had my grand-nephew, Luke and my grand-niece, Abby to take out for a nice walk. We strolled along an area that is being developed as a walking path between two towns. The place is beautiful, with a nice little river, a lot of trees and plenty of wild flowers.

We brought Arnie along with us, and as any dog would be, he was delighted! He ran with the children and pulled me along. I thought how lucky we all were to be there together!

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I go home tomorrow and look forward to being back with Hubby and the other three dogs. It’ll be great to go back home and get to enjoy springtime all over again in New Hampshire!

Beautiful Boys & Daily Life

Arnie is such a fun guy to be with. Today I bought him a special bone and he has done nothing but chew it ever since.

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I went to Weight watchers this morning, and after a few weeks of not doing anything special I was shocked to find that I lost 3.8 pounds!!!! I was so happy I almost couldn’t believe it! I think the biggest difference is that I actually was up and moving around a lot this week. Raking in the yard, walking the dogs and running up and down stairs.

MB and flowers

Me with the cherry petals

Mel and I did a bunch of shopping today too. I found many barbecue items for this summer, and Mel found things for a room she is redecorating.

We also had Mel’s grandson over and I took this cute picture of him. I love it because it shows how totally captivated by the TV kids are.

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Have a great day everyone!

Cherry Blossoms

My sister and I took our mother to a street in New Haven that is a bounty of Cherry trees. They are currently in full bloom, so we parked the car and got out and with cameras in hand, walked up and down the street snapping pictures.

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Here are, Mel and I. We forced asked a nice young man to take our picture and he reluctantly agreed!

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A streetlamp surrounded by the luscious blossoms. I cannot begin to tell you how this made us feel. Such a beautiful sight!

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Looking down this amazing street. Funny we can’t recall the name of the street, so I shall simply call it “Cherry Blossom Way”!

We also stopped at a garden area and saw many of your more usual flowers. Please go to my Flickr page to view those. You can access that page, simply by clicking on any of these pictures.

It’s supposed to be another beautiful day tomorrow, so Mel and I plan a little shopping, a walk or two with Arnie and her grandson, Luke and some time with our parents.

Mr. Arnie

My father has not been too well, so I’m going to take Mr. Arnie-Man and go to see my dad and my mother. An added bonus is that I get to see my sister, Mel, too. My parents love animals and when I brought down Anneliese (the raccoon hound), they really enjoyed the visit with her. I think that I have this crazy love of animals, because I got it from them. Growing up we always had a bunch of animals around us. So it’s probably why this chaotic life I call “Life In A Kennel” doesn’t seem to phase me too much.

Now almost everyone says that Arnie is just the coolest dude around, so I wanted to bring him for a visit. I just know that they will take one look at this face

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and fall in love with him.

Now Arnie is really quite the character. He has his own way of telling us that he needs to go out. Does he bark? No! Does he scratch at the door? No!

Arnie tap dances! Yes, you read it correctly. Arnie will go to the door and then tap dance all the way back, stare at you and then tap dance back to the door again. He will repeat this over and over until you ask him if he needs to go out. At that time he will race to the door! Why Arnie is the dog equivalent to Fred Astaire!

Arnie is also the funniest, snuggliest, little boy dog I have ever known. I have always been a girl-dog person. I thought that was the best way to go, but Arnie has changed my mind on all of that.

Yes, Mr. Arnie-Man! He is my sweetheart!