The Post Christmas Hoobity Doos

Christmas mostly went off without a hitch this year, and aside from a bruise on my eye (think 'black eye', only purple and not quite as Rocky-esque) from a Wii related accident, everyone survived the festivities.  I will have some footage to post shortly of the family embarrassing themselves in our living room.  I bet you can't wait!

Cute Little Puppy

As it has been awhile since last we spoke, I thought I might briefly update you on the growth progress of my delicate little garden flower of a puppy, Argus.

This is two months ago, at 8 months old. I promise I will tell you more stories about Argus in the future, as Tales of Argus have kept my co-workers in stitches for months now.

Howdy.

My name is Tasha, and this is my new blog. Sure, I know what you're thinking... this looks eerily like an old blog. But you see, what I wanted for Christmas was a nice shiny NEW blog - but since I am now a wife, a mother, a step-mother, and a woman with too many pets, I must take the hand-me-downs I've been offered. And so here I am, trying to make use of this old blog, which by coincidence belonged to the Old Tasha. You may have remembered her, she was single and miserable and made bad choices. Those were the OLD days, and these are the NEW days... even if it is a recycled blog.

This Tasha may not be so polite or politically correct - because the truth is that's who she is... I mean, I am. I am a goofy, dippy, snort-when-I-laugh type of girl who is now married to the love of my life. So this new blog might get sappy sometimes, and it won't be just about one thing or another... it will just be whatever it turns out to be.

Isn't that great?!

I now present to you...

The new joint venture between Scott (or 'Scootchie') and I. We thought the dogs of the world should be able to have some art to wear too, so the Art Dog collar was born.

Our experience with the potty-in-the-yard-and-not-in-the-house training led us to create these little doggie doorbells

which Argus will happily ring whenever he feels he needs a bit of fresh air.

Another Hint... (and a bonus picture for your amusement)

Turning Treinte y Cinco!

It's that time again, dear reader(s); the time when I am to click the ol' age belt up another notch and answer that I am now 35, if the question is ever (impudently) asked. It has not gone past my notice that this age means now checking a different box in any surveys I am given... for no longer am I "28-34", beginning Saturday I will be "35-42". Of course I will tell anyone who will listen that I am always honored to grow a year older and will never ever lie about my age (who wants to look like a very haggard 29 anyway?), but I do admit that I like the thought when I check that 28-34 box, that my income level is at least halfway as good as the other people checking the same box. Now I fear that I will always have the slightest niggling thought in the back of my head that perhaps my income is a bit low for the demographic I've been placed in, as I imagine by now everyone has become the established doctors and lawyers that they all dreamed they would be. Of course, it may also be said that I waste far too much time worrying about the "little things".

Scootchie and I have been working feverishly on our newest joint venture (the upcoming business that I mentioned in the last post), and I am proud to say that I am ALMOST ready to unveil it to you, dear reader(s). I just need to put a little more shine on some things, a bit of spit here and polish there, and then you will see what we've been working on. For now I will give you the smallest taste....

Our new business...




is called....













--- wait for it.....















Blue Chews Shoes. And I know that for most of you that will make no sense at all. :o)

Remember Me (?)

I was signing in to post to my blog; knowing both that it had been too long and that I couldn't begin YET ANOTHER post with apologies for not posting sooner, when right underneath the space where I put in my name and password I saw it. The little radial box that says next to it - Remember Me (?). And for a moment I was confused. For a brief moment, my feeble, overworked, over-emotional mind thought... my blog has forgotten me already?! My heart skipped a few beats and my stomach felt a little icky sick momentarily (these things all happen much faster than you'd think), and I realized that no, my blog has not forgotten me. PEOPLE may forget, but the internet NEVER forgets. Like remember the time when your husband was bored at work and came home and said "I was so bored today that I read all of your blog from the very beginning" and you blanched a bit, because you KNEW some things are better left unread. That's when you wondered if having a blog was such a good thing, because the interwebs holds on to stuff FOREVER.

But then YOU got bored and decided to try and play catch up, so that at least if the internets doesn't forget, it can at least remember the good stuff.

Ho hum... so whats been-a-goin' on since JUNE?

• This week it was so hot I almost died. I've mentioned before that I'm not built for the heat, and for some reason I feel the slightest bit betrayed that my beloved Pacific Northwest saw temperatures this week that hit 106 in this very town I'm sitting in. Ego-centric? Oh YES, I definitely am.
• My little tiny adorable four and a half month old puppy was weighed by the pros, and they proclaimed him to be 55 pounds. When we got this puppy he wasn't eating and was underweight, so news like that makes us all do the happy dance. Until he knocks us over, that is...
• My kids are very tan, and I don't know which of it is dirt and which is from the sun.
• Scootchie and I have started a business, one which justifies my purchase of a real-life industrial sewing machine, and big important-looking cones of thread. The purchases of the thread, and the sewing machine, and future needles I'm sure, all had to be made in a giant warehouse filled with bolts of material for making sails and boat upholstery, and no air conditioning to speak of. My new friend the sewing machine man and I bonded over talk of expensive sewing machines and fools not oiling the rotating hook thingie on the bobbin, all the while pretending not to notice the sweat dripping from each other's noses.
• We're still waiting to see if our offer has been accepted on a house. The term "short-sale" has nothing whatsoever to do with how long the process will take. The bank doesn't care how much you wanted to move into a house in time to put in a garden, and couldn't be bothered to learn that you wanted to marry your husband again in your very own front yard, this time with guests present.
• I learned this week that even the funniest blog writer in the known universe sometimes doubts herself and writes the droll stuff the rest of us write. But if you can give her a kick in the knickers, she snaps right back into shape and becomes herself again. Thank goodness.
• I learned that ten year old girls can sometimes be underestimated for how they will react to things, and 7 year old boys can sometimes be overestimated for how they will react to things. The death of a cat that was very, very sick can be felt very differently by different people, and no matter how much of a grown manly man you are, holding a cat when she is being put to sleep can make you cry.
• Sometimes a new pet comes into your life when you weren't really planning on it, and that can turn out to be a pretty good thing. So now we've welcomed into our life Thuma, the beautiful brown kitty cat.
• Sometimes you beg and beg, but Scootchie doesn't want you to get the OTHER pet you want because he says you have enough animals already, and no matter HOW MUCH you beg, you're NOT getting a 14 week old St Bernard puppy, EVEN IF the price is reduced.
• No matter what, Scootchie is still the best ever.

Sarcoptic and Other Manges of Canis Familiaris

I must have mocked Mange too much in my last post, for now the controllers of karma in the world have decided to infest my poor puppy with a case of it. I've learned more about puppy diseases in the past month than in my prior 34 years of living, as adorable Argus was already diagnosed with a case of the Parvo within days of our bringing him home. Parvo is bad stuff, and his bout with it required 36 hours of IV fluids at the vet, antibiotics, 6 different medicines, and Scootchie and I sleeping on couches so I could make sure puppy kept breathing all night. So $1400 dollars in vet bills later, now my mangy puppy is starting to get a few bald spots, and the vet (our new best friend) has confirmed he has a case of the Demodectic Mange. Now don't fret, dear reader(s), as the demodex mites are not nearly as horrible and sinister as the sarcoptic version. Whereas the sarcoptic mites are indiscriminate in their choice of host, the demodex buggers happen to be much more picky. They only like puppy meat, so even the other dogs in the house have so far been unaffected. Our dearest vet believes that poor Argus has a compromised immune system due to his bout with the Parvo monster, and this is why the armies of demo demons have chosen his poor little body. Rest assured that he is getting the proper medication to evict the horrible parasites, and we feel quite confident that he'll soon be as good as new, and happily eating us out of house and home. I hope to get updated pictures up soon, as soon as he stops trying to eat the camera.

And now...

We are busily beavering away at putting some spit and polish on the house, due to the imminent arrival of Scootchie's parents. They will be staying with us this weekend, as Scootchie's firstborn will be GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL. No one can believe Scootchie is old enough for this sort of travesty to befall him, but I assure you it is so. A great celebration will be had after the deed is done, for which I will be catering the food. And I just have to share the best thing that was ever said to me, by email yesterday from Patty, Scott's ex-wife and mother of said graduating senior: "YOU are the permanent wife.. I was just the trial run". I am overjoyed to share with everyone how truly awesome Patty is, as she is one of those rare, wonderful, truly benevolent human beings, who honestly is one of the biggest fans of Scoshie (the combination of Scott and Tashie) there is. Who could ask for anything more?

(How about a dog with no baldspots?)

House Hunting, Sarcoptic Mange, and Value Village

Well, Dear Reader(s), the time has come for me to give you a bit of bad news. It seems that you won't be reading blog posts composed from the sunny Echo Lake house after all, and your favorite blogger's couch will not be located across from a woodstove on the rock floor of a sunken living room grotto. You see, for the umpteenth time, the borrowed money of the Hale family has been deemed less worthy than the borrowed money of other families, simply because our money has been labeled as secured by the Veterans Administration. For the third time in a row, we've been told that no one wants to mess with the VA. In my worst pouting fit to date about this house business, I asked Scootchie (demandingly) what ever happened to that wave of patriotism everyone had? Of course the reality is this - we have no money for a downpayment and so MUST go VA, and the buyer who "won" our beautiful house was coming in with 20% down. Our offers to the seller were EXACTLY the same in terms of the money they would end up with, but those darn sellers understand how picky the VA can be. Damn! Damn! Damn!

So this morning we have yet another appointment with Real Estage Agent George, who has 7 or 8 houses in line for us to traipse through. We already have one in line for first place, but at this stage of the game I'm beginning to worry that the dreams of home ownership may end unfulfilled for the Hales. Woe is me.

To cheer myself last night I started admiring the loot I acquired the last time my Mom visited, when we stopped at a barn sale out in the boonies. For you city folk who might happen upon this blog of mine, a barn sale is not the sale of a barn, but rather it is a load of old dusty bits that have been placed into a barn for strangers to paw through. I don't know why, but for me, a barn sale can be the Holy Grail of the weekend sale-ing experience. There's a hierarchy in the sale spectrum, and barn sale is at the top for me. Some will argue that an estate sale is actually the Holy Grail, but I contend that estate sales are often over-priced, and not containing the bargains one is usually on the search for. This barn sale had us work for it's goodies, as we had to follow about fifty neon green signs to find the location. At first upon our arrival we found nothing of note. The barn was of the metal variety (not usually a good sign), and it was filled with tables of perfectly labeled ordinary items laid out nicely. Feeling let down by our exhausting journey, we were slowly making our way to the oversized exit, when we overheard a promising declaration from the principle money-taker; "don't leave before you see the other barn in the back."

And there it was, the motherlode.

The barn in the back was the ENORMOUS old RED wooden type, with lots of tables crammed FULL of miscellaneous OLD dusty, rusty, miscellaneous STUFF! And as a person who recently decided to collect vintage bottles of various bathroom-type remedies and cures for embarrassing problems, I hit the jackpot. So that's what I gazed at lovingly last night, while pining over yet another house that has passed through our lives, and the barn and shop turned gallery and art room that will never be. My wares are still dusty, as I'm scared to clean them. But in the end, I think they really help tie the room together.






And as for the Value Village part of my post, I'll have to leave that one for tomorrow. But let me whet your appetite by saying that it's a PROJECT, and it starts with this:

Meet Argus

Argus is the newest member of the Hale/Moreno househ0ld, a Neapolitan Mastiff puppy who is now about 12 weeks old. As you can see, he's not the most active of breeds, and prefers to spend most of his time sleeping. Any time not spent sleeping however, is spent either peeing or pooping, which is not my favorite part of the new-puppy experience.

It has been almost 20 years since I've had my own dog, and the only puppy I've ever had was outdoor-only. We had to give up a lot of dogs for different reasons when I was a kid, and I swore I wouldn't have a dog of my own until I could give it a good forever home.

We bought Argus from a rescue in Oregon, taking a long road trip to pick up this 9 week old puppy we didn't know much about. He sat in our laps the entire ride home, which turned out to be a bittersweet experience as he gets SEVERELY car sick. Three days after we brought him home, we discovered at the Vet's office that he tested positive for Parvo. Since I'd committed to be this new puppy's forever home, we had to at least TRY to cure him. So three days of intensive vet care and $1500 later, we got our lovable loaf back on track, eating and gaining weight like he should. In the three weeks we've had him he's gone from 12 pounds to 24-27, and never stops wagging his tail.

Life is great.

Just POST Already

I'm starting to think the problem might be attention span related. Its not that I haven't been at a computer, its not that I don't have PLENTY to talk about, its not even that I don't have a whole score of pictures taken solely for blog posts. It MUST be that I'm just plain lazy. I can't make excuses anymore - I haven't posted, Because. I'm. Lazy.

So let me bring you up to date on the most recent happenings:

1. Got married. Right, you knew that already.

2. Started looking for a house. Realize that Scootchie and I both fall in LOVE with houses that are quirky and need lots of work. We like projects, for better or for worse. So far we've made offers on three houses:

The Dome House


Amazing house on 5 acres with 2 barns and an awesome front room for the art room. Lost the bid to someone going conventional (no one likes VA loans).

The Woods Creek House


We didn't fall in love with this one until we went inside. Hardwood floors, a sunroom, a GREAT east facing room for the art room, lots of light and funky corners. The real estate agent on this one let our agent know right away she hated us and our stinky VA loan, so when we saw the next house, we rescinded our offer on this one.

The Echo Lake House

We have an offer in on this one now, and Scott has kindly told our real estate agent that we want to do everything possible to get it. This is another one that doesn't look like much from the outside, but Scootchie and I both can squint enough to see magic happening. This one is only on 1.9 acres, but since it has an ENORMOUS barn (an upstairs office in the barn has already been staked out as the art room), I've been wondering what Scootchie would think about having peacocks?

I have more updates to share (including an introduction to our newest family member), but think I may have to post more tomorrow. You see right now, we're on our way to see a man about a cash register. Not that we NEED a cash register, but today I've been at home in 80 degree weather with a sick kid, perusing the Craigslist FREE ads. Who wouldn't think this is awesome?

Ahem.... May I have Your Attention Please!

On April 25th of the year 2009, your two favorite bloggers were married. We are your favorite bloggers, aren't we?

And because I consider anyone who reads this blog a close and personal friend, here are the vows we exchanged (which I wrote and didn't tell Scootchie about ahead of time):

I, William Scott Hale, take you, Tasha Marie Jones
to be my lawfully wedded wife and my number one fan, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health.
I promise we'll make great art together,
I'll make you laugh until you snort,
and I'll always hold your hand when we go upstairs to bed.
I promise to love, honor, and cherish you until we grow old and senile,
and never again to say "I don't know what to say."

This I vow to you.

I, Tasha Marie Jones, take you, William Scott "Scootchie" Hale,
to be my lawfully wedded husband and Chief in Charge of Securing the Perimeter and changing light bulbs,
for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health.
I promise to listen to any music you choose unless it's Otep,
to make funny faces and speak in silly voices,
and to sometimes let you beat me at Trivial Pursuit.
I promise to love, honor, and cherish you even when you can't wipe your own behind anymore,
and to always tell you if your hair looks messed up.

This I vow to you.

PS: It was a terrible oversight on my part that I neglected to mention that it was my sister who was the officiant for our wedding. It all happened by accident, as I was calling to see if she could be one of our witnesses. "You know.... I can do weddings," she said. How the heck would I know THAT?! So she did it, and it's still just as official as if it'd been done by a judge, instead of on my Mom's front porch with her handyman as one of our witnesses.