The Dackel Princess

This & That

I’ve been sitting here watching the Olympics and trying to think of a good theme for today’s blog entry. Usually I am full of ideas and my hands fly across the keyboard. Today I am feeling as tired as the Alpine Skiers after their last run, and my mind seems to be drawing a blank. So I will just tell you a few things that happened on Friday.

Just before midnight on Thursday, the power went out. Fritz freaked out and woke me to open the bedroom door, which I did, even though I had no light at all to guide me.
Hubby, who had a flashlight was just coming to bed and we all met at the door.
After making coffee the next morning, I went to turn on the TV and the channel was stuck on channel 2. Could the power outage have zapped our TV’s tuner?
We tried everything to switch the station and discovered that we could press in 12 to turn the channel to channel 12, but as soon as we hit the up or down button it went back to 2. We also had no upper channels.
Hubby called the local repair shop and the woman mentioned reprogramming.
I knew how to do that, but I noticed when I went to do that, that the TV had gone from “cable” to “TV”. So I switched from “TV” to “Cable”.
Then I reprogrammed the TV and life was good. And the fix was cheap! Nothing!
Hubby went off and I did some cleaning and laundry.
I had lunch ready for Hubby when he got home and he was off right after for another appointment.
While he was gone I did some programming on Hubby’s computer.
I also learned to bullet these entries!
I also took an old pair of speakers from a dead computer and brought them out to the family room. I like to watch TV shows on my computer after they air, and I cannot always catch the dialog, but with the external speakers it works very well. Hubby likes it too.
Dinner was easy. tacos, Weight Watcher style.
Now I am working on three projects. The scarf, a booklet and a drawing.

I do not have much else planned for the weekend, or on the docket. Our town elections are on March 9th. That is the day I will be voted on for the Library Trustees. I have my name badge all made up and I am ready to stand outside all day to shake hands.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Rainy Days

Thursday it rained all day. It’s unfortunate because it is washing away the snow that the local ski areas have. Here is a picture of the local radar right now (7:30 PM Thursday night). The green is rain, the yellow is heavy rain, pink is ice and blue is snow. As you can see, the rain is pretty heavy and there isn’t much ice and snow falling in the state.

So what do you do on a day like this? My first instinct was to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head and hide. Alas, that was not to be. Hubby, who had insisted he was going to ski, arrived back home after skiing only one run, and then dragged me out to grocery shop. It was good that we went, but I got wet, and cold and grouchy!

We stopped to get the mail and I received a package from Germany, from Uschi! It was Peter Fox’s CD!!!

I am so excited about this, as I heard some of his music online and really wanted his CD. I may not understand every word, but I love the music and the rhythm.

Thank you so much Uschi!

Thankfully, we have a garage under our house, so we were able to unload the groceries in the warmth and dryness of our home. Even the dogs did not want to go out in the wetness! I cannot say I blame them either.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring as far as our weather goes. I have stopped listening to the weather forecasts and I figure what will be, will be!

Snow, Rain & Ribs

The day was long and full of snow, sleet and rain. When we got up we had about 5 inches of snow, so Hubby stayed home to clear our driveway and prepare the driveway for the rain to come.

The dogs thought this was wonderful, and the “helped” him quite a bit. In the end, the driveway was cleared and the four dogs and Hubby came into the house soaked to the skin.

Weight Watchers was canceled due to the bad roads, and I was disappointed. I knew I had done well this week and looked forward to weighing in! Oh well, there is always next week to get the official weigh in. Here at home it looked like I’d lost two pounds!

While Hubby was outside, I did what I like to do on days like this. I cooked. I made sure that Hubby ate healthy, filling meals, and this time when I cooked the baby back ribs, they came out just the way they should! Tender and delicious!

I also started a warm fire in the hearth that all three dachshunds lay in front of until they were dry. Fritz hid. He just doesn’t like fires.

I spent a little time clearing out my email folder. Suddenly everything is overloaded with SPAM. Now if the spam was interesting to me, it wouldn’t be so bad. Unfortunately my Spammers think that I am a guy and so I get all “those sort” of spam emails. Honestly, I had one addressed to “Dear Mr. Dackel Princess”!

Okay, I admit it. That one did make me laugh!

Lovable Dogs & Olympic Questions

Tuesday morning we all slept in! I mention this because lately I have been awake by 6 or 6:30 each morning. However, today the dogs and Hubby all were feeling sleepy and no one wanted to get up.

I did move about quarter to 8 and Anneliese leapt onto me with glee! I was covered with kisses by the happiest pup ever. Arnie joined in, greeting the day with pleasure, and Greta lay between Hubby and me putting up with the frivolity. The next thing we knew, Fritz jumped up to join in the celebration of a new day! Both Hubby and I laughed. We are very lucky to have this pack of dogs!

I immediately asked Hubby who had won the ice dancing the night before. The darned skating runs so late that I end up going to sleep about half way through it. I really love the skating and I wish the time was such that I could watch the whole thing. My favorite couple, Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the silver medal! I am so happy for them!!!

Of course none of us see the whole of anything, except maybe Curling and Hockey. We get those completely and at decent times. I have been less than thrilled with NBC’s coverage because they don’t show things live, like the skiing, or ski jumping, when they could. They also do not show us the “minor” players in these events.

You know, if I made it to the Olympics in any sport, I would hope that the world would see me. Think about it. These kids practice 7 days a week, for years and years and years. Don’t they deserve their moment of glory as much as the medal winners do?

I can tell you that I have watched a ton of Curling. Do I understand it at all? Not really. Hubby does. His parents came from Canada and apparently has played and watched the sport over the years enough to tell what the heck they are doing. I do know one thing…there was a girl from Denmark on the Women’s Curling team and she looked really tough. I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark ally.

Best moments, Lindsey Vonn winning gold and Bode Miller winning his medals, all three of them! And of course Meryl and Charlie! What are your favorite moments?

Fritz’s Day

This morning I was watching the news and they spoke of a week where we will have snow every day. The alarmist weatherman said that ski country (where I live) has the possibility of getting 1-2 feet of snow! I am really not sure if this will actually happen, but I took stock of what needed to be done around here, just in case.

First, our trash, magazines and newspapers all needed to go to the recycling center. So, I dressed in my grubby, go to the dump clothes and started to pack the Jeep with the trash. I turned to pick up a bag and I looked back and Fritz was in the Jeep, sitting there waiting to go.

I suppose I could have dragged him out of the Jeep, but he looked so excited that I just finished loading the car and off we went, Fritz and me! I rolled the window down so he could feel the wind on his face, and I thought how good that must feel to him. When I was on the cruise, I stood on the deck of the ship and felt the wind on my face and it felt wonderful!

We recycled everything and Fritz even got a cookie from the recycling center helper. The woman there just loves Fritz! We went to the bank after that and Fritz got another 2 cookies there. He is really popular with the ladies!

We stopped at the grocery store so I could buy a few things to tide us over during the storm, and a man in the parking lot asked if that was a White German Shepherd? I said yes, and he got quite excited to see such a handsome boy.

At the Post Office, a man asked me about Fritz and I told him what sort of dog Fritz is. It was simply Fritz’s day to be noticed! This was so nice because the dackels get all the attention and Fritz is happy with that. He loves them too. But every once in a while, it’s nice when people make a fuss over him.

Today, I really enjoyed my big boy! What a Prince!

I’m Knitting!

Okay, I’m trying to knit. Usually I get half way into a project and stop. Really, I am so bad about actually finishing a project. A few times I thought about loading up my car with all my yarn and heading to my sister’s house where I will give her all my unfinished projects! She is the one in the family who sticks to it and actually finishes a project!

I digress.

I found a pattern for a very easy long knit scarf. It’s 12 stitches on size 10 needles and it’s simply the garter stitch. For those of you who do not knit, this means that you use one stitch called the knit stitch all through the pattern.

I can do this!

The scarf is a raspberry, variegated mix yarn and it is fuzzy and soft. I sure hope it comes out well because, I would like to actually finish something and have it look good.

I should probably join the local knitting group, called the “Knotty Knitters”. They meet once a week and could probably whip me into shape. Or is that knit me into shape! lol! I know, bad joke!

Arnie was lying on the sofa today and I watched him arrange his pillow, get his bone and then settle himself down chewing it. I had to laugh because he looked so darn cute as he lay there, like the little Prince that he is!

The weekend is nearly over, where did the time go? At least this is my week to keep things low key. No big meetings, and no appointments that I have to go to. Good time to knit, yes?

Splish Splash!

After breakfast I got all the dackels together and washed them down in the shower. I think I had not bathed them since last summer! In any case, Jack came into the bathroom and I was going to hand him Anneliese to dry, when Greta snuck out of the shower dripping wet and ran from the room! Oh my goodness everything got soaked! We tried to find and dry off each of the girls, and then we got Arnie out. The poor little guy was all alone in the shower. Ah well, rugs dry!

Bathing beauty and all around sneak, Greta!

Now if I had been smart I would have just stayed home, and done housework all day. But no, I decided to run some errands, which is never a good idea.

I did the usual. I got the mail, went to the grocery store and then on my way back home I saw that the car wash was open. Hmmmm, I thought, this Jeep sure could use a wash. It was covered with sand and salt and grime from our sloppy winter roads. However, in the last few days things have dried out and I knew that this would be a great day to get it washed.

I turned in, paid my money, and started through the automatic wash. Splish, splash, spray, and the brushless system, cleaned the Jeep right off. I could hear the under carriage jets washing off below. All was going along well, until we reached the rinsing part of the cycle.

The water came pouring into the Jeep through the drivers side door frame! I got soaked! I tried to put my hand up to stop the water coming in (like that would even have worked!), but it didn’t. I sort of felt like I was in an “I Love Lucy” episode and glanced around for Lucy’s faithful sidekick Ethel! But all I found was a drenched Maribeth!

I came home soaking wet!

As I sit here tonight, giggling over the events of the day, I have to say one thing, besides having a clean car and clean doggies, I also laughed a lot!

Isn’t that what we hope for at the end of the day?

Love, Life and Lots of Laughter!

Readers!

Every morning I get up and check my computer for updates on the Blogs I love to read. For 5 years I have been using Bloglines. That was, until today!

I’ve been a fan of Bloglines for many years. I like the way things are laid out, and I felt comfortable using it. I even tried to overlook the fact that about twice a month they get totally messed up and I do not get any of my feeds. Then I recently found out that people using Bloglines don’t get my feeds at all! How did I find this out? I subscribed to my own feeds and didn’t get them!

I had Google Reader, but not with a current listing of the Blogs that I like to read. So, I went through all the export/import stuff this morning and have moved everything onto Google Reader. It’s not my favorite reader, but I just want to know when you all are updating your Blogs!

Sheesh, is that too much to ask for?

Well, I won’t delete my Bloglines account, I’ll keep it for now as a back up, but I may need emotional support to keep from going back to it. I know that switching to Google Reader will be good for me in the long run, more reading and less frustration, but I am not a woman who makes changes easily.

What Reader do you use and why?

Shubi

It’s been four years since my Shubi passed away. I was trying to get through the day without allowing myself to wallow, but Shubi was the dog of my heart and my soul and losing her was such a sad time for me. It feels like she just left me the other day.

We got Shubi in Landshut, Germany when she was just about 3 months old. We brought her home and she took over our old White German Shepherd, Max as well as our household.

She was always by my side, loving me, encouraging me and making me laugh. Ten years was not enough, it should have been twenty that we had her with us, and even then, it would not have been long enough.

Shubi is the reason I came to love wire-haired dachshunds. She is the reason I bought Greta and began to breed pups all those years ago. Everyone should have a dog like Shubi at least once in their lives.

Shubi

December 1, 1995-February 18, 2006

FOUR FEET

I have done mostly what men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through–
Wherever my road inclined–
Four-Feet said, ‘I am coming with you!’
And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round–
Which I shall never find–
Some where that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

— Rudyard Kipling —

Snow & Batteries

We had about 5 inches of snow overnight on Tuesday. Hubby was wonderful and cleared the drive so I could get out to Weight Watchers. I hate to miss a meeting. After the meeting I went out, got into my car and…nothing. Dead battery! Thankfully I had my cell phone and my AAA card. So I called the auto club, and within a few short minutes the mechanic arrived and started the Jeep. He told me not to shut it down for a bit, so the battery would naturally charge.

So I drove home, grabbed some things to mail, and then went to the Post Office and the Library before returning home. I’d tested the battery by shutting the car off and then attempting to turn it on, and found that although it was turning slowly, I could start the car.

Later on Hubby determined that one cell in the battery is most likely dead and we will need a new battery for the Jeep.

Anneliese loved the snow and I snapped a couple of pictures of her.

I’m not sure who is cuter in the snow. Kids or dogs? Perhaps they are both adorable! I know I just love to watch Anneliese, Arnie and Fritz play in the white stuff. It makes me smile and laugh. Greta, of course, feels that she is too old and too dignified for that sort of play.

Have a good day everyone!