Been a while...Been a crappy summer

I haven't posted anything since June 18th. that's over 6 months now. I had an immensely crappy summer followed by an even worse fall, then November hit and there was an even bigger surprise. Mostly there was so much going on that i never had the emotional time to get all my thoughts out into a post. The rest of it was not the sort of things i want the details of all over the internet. I'll try to tell the stories as best i can without revealing too much.

In my last post, i talked all the things that were gone.

Such as Boyfriend Jon's work schedule. That started in April....and didn't end until late October. 12 hour days, almost every day of the week. He was exhausted and frustrated nearly all the time. To each of our credit, we only had one blowout where our emotional turmoil got the best of us and we took it out on each other verbally. But even that only lasted one angry phone call and we made up a few hours later. I don't want to sound like i'm a needy clingy person...but i missed him whenever he was gone. Our time to be together became infrequent but precious. Still we managed to get in a few camping trips and a couple weekends where literally all we did was simply BE at home together.
Of course...when the schedule ended, it was weird. And i ended up having to ask him to be out of the house so i could finish his christmas gifts without him seeing. A compromise was found where i worked behind a screen (a folding table leaning up against the couch blocking my work from his view...but he could still see my face).

Another thing is gone...and all i can say is good riddance. Someone i care about deeply was in a relationship with...well....the only way i can think of him now is as a con artist. Because that's what he did. He came in like a whirlwind and swept a very grounded person off her feet. He charmed her and wooed her and even put a ring on her finger.
But then things started to sour over the summer. He had tales of woe about his finances and he worked all the time. He was a very private person so he didn't want her talking to others about the problems he was having. So quietly, she helped fund so many things for him. Because she loved him, completely. Even moved to a different city, into a house that was awful for her elderly dog and had spiders infesting the lawn....but the money started running out. And things started to get worse. We all knew something was up, but she wouldn't tell us any details.
And one day...in an email...he ended everything and said he was moving out and only showed up once more to get his stuff, clearly having tried to time it so she wouldn't be there.
With a lot of coaxing, the whole story started coming out. The family and the friends were all shocked. We had all been conned by his entrancing stories, the seemingly unbreakable devotion he displayed for her, the simple fact that she was completely in love. He conned everyone, myself included, and shattered her heart.

So we did what friends and family do best. We circled the wagons around her and helped her get back on her feet. We talked, hugged, and helped until she was grounded again.
I'm so proud to say that she used this crappy experience to change careers into something that made her happy (and made her more money), she moved out of that house and into a new temporary place until she can move back to the city that suits her personality, and she is making plans to go back to school. She really channeled her anger and hurt into a very positive path.

Fast forward to September, and i'll tell you the rest of my crappy 6 months.

My uncle fell off his deck onto his head/shoulder area. Even worse luck...his head managed to find a single loose brick on the ground for it to land on.
Thankfully, someone was home and heard the crash and found him almost immediately so he was able to get help right away.
The tally of injuries were as follows: His left ear was nearly severed, a massive concussion, broken collarbone and shoulder blade, 5 broken ribs on his left side and 2 on his right, and he somehow managed to rip his toenail off. He was on a breathing and feeding tube for 2 full weeks, and in the ICU at Harborview for 2 months, then he was kept in the Acute care for an additional month. Thankfully the amazing doctors and nurses and PT trainers did an amazing job and my uncle is almost back to his usual self.
During this time, tempers and emotions were high to put things mildly. Somehow my mother and I ended up trying to be the peace keepers between certain members of the families, both working from opposite angles. That took up every ounce of my mental and emotional strength since i could see both sides merits and shortcomings.

I celebrated the day my uncle was able to go home with some reservations. I was so so so happy that he had recovered enough to go home. But i worried about the emotional healing and the fortitude of several parties involved.
Things seem to have found an unsteady equilibrium, but i check in every now and then to see if i can lend an ear or a different perspective.

Then when i thought i couldn't take another major change, November 1st hit.

Standing in front of my NaNoWriMo group of dear friends, Boyfriend Jon, not typically a big speech maker,  put his arm around me and started a countdown, explaining all our milestones:

6 NaNoWriMo's have been done while we've known each other
5 NaNo's that we've done together as a couple
4 year anniversary
3 cheers for all the work i put into my meetings
2 writers in love
1 simple question

and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

to which i replied, with my usual eloquence,..."oh hell yeah."

Honestly, i could never have gotten through the shit storm that was my 2013 summer and fall without him by my side. And it was an amazing turn around from all the awfulness to have something so wonderful to celebrate.

I listened to my grandmother's uncouth advice when i picked him: "Will you still love him when he farts and has sagging parts?" and the answer is yes. I've never imagined being married to anyone until i met him. there was always a family, but the future husband was always faceless and abstract in my daydreams. Now i see Jon, clearly, across the daydreamed dinner table with kids screaming about not wanting to eat peas, and i can already hear the jokes he's going to crack. Or the calm and sage advice he'll pull out just when i'm ready to tear my hair out over a really bad day. I don't need a diamond and a huge party. I just need him with me to face whatever the future brings.

So it is my pleasure to introduce you to my Betrothed.

Gone

These last couple have weeks have been all about people being gone.

Boyfriend Jon is working harder than ever this summer. Since i leave for work before 7am and he's starting to frequently get home between 8-9pm, i hardly see him. To give credit where credit is due. Boyfriend Jon took on some extra chores to help out and i've been seeing random bouquets often, so i know he's thinking of me as much as i'm thinking of him.

It's weird having my live in-best friend gone all the time. It makes me thankful for Kira-dog to make sure i have company even if she just ignores me when i talk to her. He finally walks in and flops on the couch just in time for me to announce i need to head to bed so i can get up again for work. Often our only interactions are a few emails during the day, and a brief summary of our days before bed.

But what we lack in interaction during the week we more than make up for on the weekends. Boyfriend Jon has been serenading me with his ukulele, following me to family functions, going with me to the dog parks, and even trying to bake something together.

Allow me to segue into our "I Love Lucy-esque Malasada Blob Fiasco". We decided it would be fun to try to make Malasadas (Portuguese doughnut that is so popular in Hawaii that the day before lent is known as Malasada Day). We probably should have known that we were in trouble when the recipe called for 9 teaspoons of yeast, 12 eggs and 5lbs of flour.
But we pushed on in ignorance...having to get creative with my kitchenaid to fit all these ingredients in the bowl. Then came the blob as all that yeast got to work and it spilled over the sides of the largest aluminum pan we could find at the grocery store.
It was at this point Boyfriend Jon started singing the "i love lucy" theme song making us both laugh hysterically. Plus the dough was sticky, gloopy, and got all over the place as we tried to drop clumps into hot oil without burning ourselves. The end result was pretty tasty, b
ut we had at least 100 malasadas for 7 people.

There's another person in my life who is gone. Leila Ball, whom i always called grandma, passed away last week. Even though technically she's only my cousin's grandma. So....grandma in law? But since we spent our childhoods together, i and my brother Johnny got rolled into the Grandkids group. The news was expected since she was 90+ with cancer and having a very rough time of it. While i will miss her gentle voice at our family gatherings, i'm glad she's no longer in pain.


And finally there's another missing piece of my life. My father retired and decided he wanted to travel the USA immediately after. So they've packed up and left my childhood home behind headed for Idaho, Yosemite, South Dakota, Georgia, Virginia, and New York. For a month and a half, my parents...who are totally homebodies and rarely leave a 5 mile radius...are completely gone. Out of state, incommunicado, gone.

I like to think i don't rely on them very much, but knowing that Boyfriend Jon scoffs whenever i say that....it's very weird to know they're gone. My brother will be house sitting soon, but i went over last night to check on the house and was overwhelmed by this creepy feeling of a dead silent house. Coming from a 6 person family, that house has never in my life been that quiet. Sure I've been over there when there's no one home, but even then, the furnace or AC is on, my mom's computer whirring. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but the profound silence creeped me out!

I'm certain that myself, my siblings, my cousins, and Boyfriend Jon will all adjust just fine to the sudden changes, but the suddenness of so many things being gone
all at once really hit me last night, standing in the silence and heat of a house that no one calls home right now. It feels like something big just happened yet i know it's no big deal.

After 2 Months with the Porch Potty

So following up the design and construction of the Porch Potty for Kira, here is how it worked for us.

Good stuff!

1. Kira now uses the Porch Potty on her own. It only took about 2 weeks before she understood that that was her home potty, and that the green stuff downstairs was ok to pee in too. Now we have no more issues with her bathroom needs. 
2. We added a dog door insert for a sliding glass door so that she could go out there without us. 
• A bunch of cheese, treats, and throwing her precious dog toys outside, or putting her outside and walking away while calling to her eventually got her to push her way through without problem. Don't give up on this training. 
• This was safe for us since the walls of our patio are solid and there's only a tiny gap underneath that she can't possibly fit through. If you're in an apartment where its safe, i highly recommend these. We got ours second hand from craigslist for 70$ as opposed to the 150+ or retail. 
• We had to remove the heavy plastic flap for something more lightweight. It wasn't as air tight, but now she has no fear of the clank the other one was making. 
3. The cleanup has been a breeze with the latest set up. 

The Refining Process (things we changed):

1. I had forgotten to go buy the kitty litter in my initial design when we set this up. So instead, we put pee pads underneath the tray for the sod to drip the pee onto. This worked pretty well until it rained...more on that later.
2. We started with Sod from my parents back yard. Unfortunately Kira decided that this was a tasty treat and proceeded to try to eat the sod. 
3. We then switched to a commercial sod that was low cut and not as easy for her to pull up. While she didn't eat this as much, it was comprised of a clay like dirt that held onto the water (pee) very well and quickly developed a stench.
4. So then we got some second hand Astroturf. and cut it so it fit inside of the tray. Yes, it drained just fine.
• I cut the astro turf so i could tuck a little edge underneath, then used a heavy duty staple gun to secure the turf to the plastic tray. Make sure you get all the stray threads/corners clipped or tucked under. 
• This was around the time that Kira figured out how to escape her pen and we tried leaving her alone during the day. Let's just say....the first several rounds of astroturf....didn't fare to well against a bored puppy. 
• So we stopped leaving her out and now we've had the same astroturf in place for over a month. 
5. Back to the pee pads. It's pretty easy to tell when the pee pads need to be changed. They started to smell through the astroturf. And also, living in the great northwest means rainstorms hold more water than puppy pads can hold. From experience i can tell you it's not fun lifting up the tray to find an inch of pee infused water. 
6. So we finally got some odor control kitty litter and put that on top of some pee pads under the tray (kitty littler is dangerous for dogs to eat so make sure you have a barrier between the two). Now we just scoop out the clumps every few days and add a little more kitty litter when it's getting low. Really i think this was the best solution after all. Can't believe it took me over a month to go get some silly kitty litter! 

The final "perfect" solution: From top down. 

Astroturf, secured to tray with heavy duty staples along the edges. 

plastic soda tray

Kitty litter

pee pads/plastic 

wooden tray frame

Maintenance Routine:

Every couple of days we scoop out the clumps and flush them. Adding more kitty litter if needed. 

Once a week, I take the tray with the attached astroturf into the shower and run water on it for a few minutes to clean it off.  

Next month, i plan to spray it with some detergent to give it a good cleaning. Should last a long time.

If I didn't have a dog...

Today Kira is 6 months old. What did we do for this milestone? We took her to get spayed, chipped, and her teeth cleaned. The surgery went well and she's recovering at the vet's until i pick her up tomorrow. But still, that's 28 hours without my dog!!

Boyfriend Jon dropped her off this morning and sent me this text: : "She's been dropped off. Didn't even look back when the Dr. took her. Said they'll call in 1-2 hours to let us know how the surgery went."

Of course this led to all sorts of jokes revolving around "It's all fun and games until someone gets put in a cone!"

As i continued my day at work, i had to keep reminding myself that Kira wasn't where she normally was.

And by lunchtime, i found myself remembering what it was like to not have a dog...and feeling so sad that i thought i had a full life back then. Just 4 months my life has totally changed to the point where just a few hours without her makes me feel like a fish out of water.

If I didn't have Kira...

• There would be no nose art on my car's windows which drive my window OCD crazy
• I wouldn't have to put away the car seat covers which take the place of having passengers
• My car wouldn't have a faint odor of wet dog from our many trips to the dog park
• Boyfriend Jon and I wouldn't head home every single day at lunch to find what new piece of her bathroom she's torn to pieces because we're gone. 
• I wouldn't have to include the status of every bowl movement in each conversation with Boyfriend Jon
• I wouldn't have to fight to get her off the couch when i'm eating something
• My favorite tv shows and even conversations wouldn't have to compete with her INCESSANT squeaky snake!
• I wouldn't have nail and teeth marks all over my body from the jumping, pawing, and missing the toy and accidentally biting my fingers when we're playing.
• I wouldn't have an area of my home that smells like a urinal.
• Our floor wouldn't be littered with dog toys, rawhide bones, tennis balls and bits of fluff from who knows what. 
• Boyfriend Jon and I could get amorous without her intense desire to investigate!!!!!

But at the same time, If i didn't have Kira....

• I wouldn't have a co-pilot who whines and paws at me until i put down the window for her to stick her head out so she can channel her inner BAT DOG!!!!
• I wouldn't have someone to warm my feet when i'm curled on the couch.
• I wouldn't have someone who was bat shit crazy ecstatic that i came home (ok, Boyfriend Jon does a pretty good job of this but he just can't wiggle his butt quite that fast)
• I wouldn't have someone come and lick my hand clean when i'm sick or not felling well on the couch.
• I wouldn't have so much pride at all the commands and tricks Kira has learned in just six months without professional training. 
• I wouldn't have video after video and picture after picture which make me laugh even when i'm in the blackest moods

I guess once you go wet noses and fur, you can't go back. I can't wait to have my pup back home where she belongs. 

Details of DIY Drainless Porch Potty

In my last post, I showed you my concept for a porch potty for my little dog. But as we all know, sometimes things work better in theory than in practice. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to be one of those times.

I forgot to get a before picture, but this pile of wood used to be a pallet i salvaged from a dumpster. The results were a small sheet of plywood (2'x3'), 3 two-by-fours (3' long) and what i'm going to refer to as remaining scrap. (might have gotten a little over zealous with the disassembling) 

If you decide to go the salvage route...it's very helpful to have two people, crowbars, and hammers with the claws on the back. My dad and i disassembled this pallet in about 10 minutes.

This is the supplies i gathered: The soda crate in front is only 1.5" tall (when laid flat). But if you get a more common style that's taller, you may need to change the size of your wood tray or cut it.. 

IMPORTANT!: just because it's called a 2x4, doesn't mean it's actual measurements are 2"x 4". It's actually more like 1.5" x 3.5". This link explains WHY. 

STEP 1: Cut down the Plywood down to size

I have a table saw available. But you could use a circular saw, a saws-all, a jig saw...basically just get it cut down to size. I originally was going to have the crate sit INSIDE of the wood tray walls, so i took the measurements of my tray and added 1.5 inches to each side for the width of the 2x4. 

STEP 2: Cut the walls down to size

Remember, i'm using all salvage wood. So i had to adjust the raw pieces before cutting them to length. 

Since the crate i got was so short...i decided to "rip" the 2x4s (cut along the grain aka...longwise) down to 1.5" by 1.5". And just in case you're wondering...yes i actually did all the work myself. Dad just sat back and took pictures - which may explain some of the shaky, tilted or unfocused pictures to follow.

Then i cut the walls to length. 

STEP 3: Dry fit assembly

No glue or screws or nails yet. You just want to make sure everything fits together. 

For this, i used what's called "butt joints". The end of the wood butts up against the side of the wood to form a joint. Had i wanted to make this a little nicer, i could have cut the corners at 45 degree angles and "Mitered" the joints. But this is for a dog and she happens to enjoy butts :)

It was at this point that my dad and I noticed something interesting about our crate: There was a lip on the edge!

So the design changed slightly: We moved the walls in slightly so that edge of the crate sits ON TOP of the walls at the lip instead of INSIDE. To do this, we cut the plywood and the wall pieces down just a little bit and moved the walls in and added a piece in the center to help support the middle of the crate (that's the little square in the middle: i cut off a small end of the scrap from the walls and glued it to middle of the plywood tray)

Originally, i was going to have at least 5 of those support pieces, one in each corner and one in the middle...but the lip on the crate took place of the corner pieces. The point of these was to keep the crate off the bottom of the tray where kitty litter/pee pads will collect the pee. 

STEP 4: Sand.

You don't want the plastic to get punctured, so you'll want to sand down all the splinters and sharp edges. 150 grit sandpaper should be fine. You can do a higher grit count if you're using nicer wood. But honestly, there was only so much i could do with a scrap pallet. 

STEP 5: Final assembly

I coated the bottom of the walls with glue and clamped them into place.

Then to secure it, i flipped it over and got out a trusty nail gun. You could do this with screws or regular nails, but...air nailers are so much fun!!!

Space the nails about 4-6" apart all the way around. 

For good measure, i screwed the walls to each other as well. these, were 4 inch deck screws and i pre-drillled the holes to prevent splitting. 

STEP 6: Finishing

I ran the sander along the edges again, and filled in some of the gaps with wood filler then set it up to dry. 

At some point between the point that last picture was taken, i added short square feet to the bottom to keep the tray off the deck so moisture wouldn't get trapped. Those were just glued and air nailed down. But unfortunately none of the pictures i have shows them. 

I suppose i could have waterproofed it, painted flowers on it or attached LED lights to it... but I just used a can of spray paint my dad had in his cabinet and let it dry. 

Then I took the whole kaboodle home, up 3 flights of steps (really this wasn't bad, it was maybe 15 pounds of material) put a pee pad on the bottom (until we get kitty litter), laid the crate in and covered with grass i stole from my parent's back yard. 

Drum roll please!!! 

Kira wasn't really sure what to make of it at first. Apparently it was good enough to eat because we spent the whole first day trying to get her to stop eating the grass. 

The second day, had the same problem. 

We'd let her out there, she'd try to eat it, then refuse to pee on it even when we shut her out there and waited. The minute we let her in, straight to the pee pad. I started to wonder if it just wasn't going to happen and this was a big waste of time and effort. 

Finally I did something a little different. 

Since i usually get up first around 6...i'm on morning potty patrol. I let her out of her crate to go potty and she runs right over to her pad and goes immediately. So this morning, i picked her up, and carried her outside and put her right on the grass patch. She wiggled for a minute, but then squatted and went potty on it. I praised her, gave her treats and a long belly rub. 

And my little Wigglebutt pranced her way back into the house very proud of herself. 

I'm setting a reminder by May to touch back to this topic and give you an update. Cover what worked, and what didn't, what issues we ran into and how we went about fixing them. 

I hope this is helpful to all the do it yourself dog people out there.