Why I Oughta...

We give Lizzie her breakfast and water in the morning.  Every morning.  It is part of our routine.  I wake up, go downstairs, let her out of her crate, take her out.  Then we do a food/drink dance.  After she eats and drinks, if I'm going downtown to the office, I shuffle her back into her crate for the morning.  Actually, she runs into the crate herself.  Then, a couple of hours later when Nat and the kids are up and around, they let her out and she has run of the house. She's different than Maisy when it comes to food/drink.  Maisy only ate and drank when you were in the room with her.  We kept her food and water bowls in my office - where she lived.  I'd fill them up every day, but some days it seemed like she would barely eat.  And only eat when we were sitting in the office together.  Lizzie on the other hand devours everything you put down.  On the spot.  That includes water that she guzzles.  So, we don't leave a ton of water out for her.  She gets it at cert

There's no picture here, mostly because a photo of an upside down goldfish is gross and, frankly, a little sad.  Lucky, our goldfish is no more. I posted about Lucky back in 2016 when The Babe won her/him at Ribfest .  She/he lived in a bowl in Equation Boy/Man's house for a while, then we moved him/her into our place in Downers Grove.  The bowl sat on our vanity upstairs since we moved in. Welp, he/she succomb'd to something earlier this month and I noticed that he/she was acting funny and after spending a few days near the bottom of the bowl, started to float a bit.  Swimbladder problem is the most likely issue ( Thx, Google !) and after a short period of time, he/she appeared one morning near the top of the bowl.  The loss hit hard on a couple of the kids.  But only for an hour or two.  Then everyone seemingly moved on.  Feels to me like an inflection point:  we can go one of two ways. 1.  Don't look back and get out of the fish business. 2.  Go big.  Ge

Back in October, I posted about the newest member of our family: Elizabeth Bennet .  We call her Lizzie.  And now she's 7 months old.  Hard to believe.  She's gotten a lot bigger, a little bit smarter, hasn't slowed down one second and is just as much of a lapdog as her big sister Maisy. Lizzie has some problems that Maisy never did including resource guarding and hating...I mean TOTALLY HATING going outside if it is rainy or snowy or even cold.  I almost have to push her outside some mornings.  But, she's getting the hang of things.  And while she's been a total pain the rear at times, she is a lover of a dog who curls up in our laps each night as we watch tv. She's been spayed, so that might have slowed her down a step - but that's it.  Just a step.  She still darts around and if it weren't for 'burst mode' on my phone, I would have never been able to snap this photo you see above. She's no Maisy (and she couldn't be, amirite??

It was back in May that we lost our dear girl Maisy just shy of her 11th birthday.  I still miss her dearly.  And we kinda tried to fill the void by bringing home a goldfish from RibFest .  BTW...that fish is still alive and well!  And the whole burden of cleaning the bowl has been pretty easy thus far.  Installed a filter, change out like 1/4 to 1/3rd of the water about once every ten days and the thing stays clean. Anyway...back to dogs.  Our dear Maisy was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  And she was.the.best.dog.ever.  First dogs often are, aren't they?   I've talked with a few people and they all say the same thing:  that first dog that couples often get BEFORE they have kids has a special relationship and bond with the family.  They're just different.  Sure, second dogs are great and they're also special.  But just about everybody that I've talked to has said the same thing:  it just isn't the same. And with Maisy being pretty awesome?  I'm gue

Along side Ariel and Flounder, that orange and white fish on the left is our new pet: Lucky.  Well...his name *might* be Lovie because the Savage calls her that, but everyone else calls her Lucky.  She's been living in this two gallon bowl for the past few weeks after being 'won' (can we call it that?) at the Naperville Rib Fest. This new 'pet' has, ummmm, been a source of disagreement around the family.  I've taken on the bulk of the burden of keeping her tank clean - which hasn't been super easy - but getting her at a carnival is a sort of 'loophole' that was exploited that I don't think was appreciated by senior leadership.  Add the fact that we've been out of our temporary home for five weeks and the burden has been shared across generations. Over the next few days, we'll transition her back to Elmhurst and if she survives the multiple water changes, the car ride and the change of locations, then she's far hardier that I exp

We captured these two guys with a bucket right at the edge of our beach on Paw Paw Lake.  The Babe is into fishies so she got a kick out of seeing these guys on our countertop.  They stayed there for about 20 minutes and somehow "escaped" back into the lake when the Babe was getting ready for bed.