Wordless Wednesday: Caption Rita and Reg

Rita and Reggie had a very fun play date today. Can you caption these cute pups?

My Dog's So Weird: Breakfast Mischief (And... A New Title)

Rita has some very odd habits.

Here's one that's been surfacing lately - she doesn't want to eat her breakfast.

Dinner, she'll snarf down in two minutes flat. But breakfast? She'll often sleep until 9, get up to go outside quickly, and then go back to bed.

Less Wordy Wednesday: An Update on Adorable Adoptable Pups

Ages ago (siriusly... ages - it was way back last June...), I posted 2 pics of buddies Gus and Ricky, who were up for adoption at Helen Woodward Animal Center where I volunteer. I asked you guys to come up with captions and (some of) you guys came through! 

From Amy at Terra Toby: Bus: "Right here?"
Ricky: "A little lower…to the left…ahhh right there!"

Wordless Wednesday: A Photo Flashback

I shared this recently on my Facebook author page, but thought I'd share it here as well.

As far as I know, this is the first known photo of me with a dog: (sorry about the quality - I just took a pic of the original with my phone)

Monday Mischief: Dog Days of Summer - in Winter

It's too hot to blog! Siriusly. My office with the computer in it gets the sun beating into it in the afternoons (and trying to blog via an iPad is an exercise in frustration!), so I'm going to try to keep this brief!

The weather in San Diego this afternoon while I type this is 87 degrees.

Wordless Wednesday: Our Minx, the Sphinx

Remember I told you about Rita's artwork/custom-bedding project? I didn't have the heart to throw it away, so it's in our bedroom and she sleeps on it every night. (Sometimes I hide it under her blankie but she's not crazy about that.)

Here she's our little minx in her custom bed, doing her sphinx imitation:

Monday Mischief: When No Mischief Is Mischief

When I posted last week about Rita meeting Sugar, I mentioned that I was hopeful she'd like Sugar, since there's a sweet, calm, older golden in our 'hood that Rita likes.

Well, we ran into her this weekend, just hanging out on a sunny sidewalk all by herself. (She's so mellow, her pawrents just let her hang out in front of her house. I'd worry too much to ever let a dog do that, but then... I worry about everything!)

Monday Mischief: If Only Rita Was as Sweet as Sugar!

You guys! We met a celebrity this weekend! As fun and exciting as it was, there was a lot of mischief too...

I was super excited to get a chance to meet Sugar (!!) from Sugar the Golden Retriever fame on Saturday!

Love To Go To the Dog Show But Not For the Dog Show

Today for less-wordy Wednesday, I'm sharing some of the (really terribly blurry*) pics I took at the recent dog show here in San Diego. Two of my sisters and I go pretty much every year, but I don't even care about the actual dog show.

You might wonder why someone would go to a dog show and not watch the show, but there are lots of other things to do. 

First of all, we love to walk around and see all the cute pups, like this adorable beagle getting ready to go in the ring:

Every bit as cute as Miss P!

Wordless Wed.: A Walk in the Fog with the Dog

We've had some super foggy mornings here lately. Rita's not a huge fan of walking in the fog. She seems to be on high alert, as you can tell from her perked up ears in this pic.

Dementia and Show Tunes (and Dogs!), Oh My!

The other day, there was a report stating researchers found that singing show tunes helped improve brain function in patients with Alzheimer's/dementia. The researchers held sing-along sessions with hits from The Wizard of Oz, Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, and found that those who sang along showed "marked improvement" compared to those who just listened.

The hubs and I really worry about our brains - especially mine, which often doesn't work right. This was fantastic news to me, because I know every word to every song from Oklahoma! (and most of them for TSoM and TWoO and, as a bonus, South Pacific). We not only had the albums when I was a kid, but I played Aunt Eller in the school musical. (I shoulda rounded up a pic, but that would be Throw-back Thur, and today's Less-Wordy Wed.)

To prove to myself I still had it, I typed out the lyrics to Ado Annie's "I Can't Say No" from Oklahoma. (Hit that link if you've never heard it. It's not exactly a beautiful tune, but it's fun.) 

So, here are my typed lyrics... accompanied by repurposed dog photos.

Monday Mischief: Custom Bedding! And a Storage Problem Solved!

The hubs and I have been on the search for a good night's sleep (defined as not waking up in pain. Is that too much to ask?) for, like, years now. A while back we realized we wanted different things, so went to two twins in our king frame. Because of our search, we have a couple of spare twin bed toppers around the house, and since we had (yet another) new bed coming, I needed to do some rearranging. 

I asked the hubs to toss one of the toppers in the spare room until I could rearrange some stuff stored under that bed and store the topper under there too. That night we went to bed and Rita trotted off to the spare room where she sometimes sleeps up on the guest bed. We heard what sounded either like distant fireworks (my guess, since we live within hearing distance of SeaWorld's fireworks and it was a 3-day weekend for MLK Jr. Day) OR Rita rearranging the blanket we keep on top of the guest bed for when she sleeps in there (the hub's guess, since Rita likes a cozy nest). We were both wrong.

The next morning I found this:

Someone had a good time.

Wordless Wed.: The Dog's a Fan of the Bone Broth Craze!

Did you know there's a bone broth craze going on? (If something makes The Today Show it's probably officially a craze!) I've been making bone broth for the hubs (so it will hopefully help with his joint and bone issues). He drinks a hot mug of it every night, and the dog's a fan!

Here she is watching, waiting, and hoping while I prep the bones for the cooking.

Lost & Found Mischief

Each novel I write has its own notebook. It holds various things: a rough outline, timeline, character notes, lists of names, maybe some first-draft scenes when I don't feel like working on my desktop PC, any newspaper articles or photos or other bits of inspiration, etc.

Well, this weekend I realized I'd lost my notebook for Book #4. Aggggh! I figured it was in the house, so looked everywhere. I've been known to absentmindedly set things down in weird places when I'm straightening up and have my hands too full, so I really looked everywhere! (Yes, I looked in the freezer.)

Wordless Wednesday: Left Out in the Cold

Recently when my sis was dog-sitting Rita, she took Reg and Rita over to a neighbor's house so they could race around in their park-like backyard. (Yes, the livin' is easy - and warm - in the winter time in San Diego, but our backyards are tiny.) 

They played:

Monday Mischief: There's Always One!

Every year when I put my Christmas stuff away after New Year's, there's always ONE thing that evades me, which is a pain since the Xmas decor gets crammed, er, packed with great precision into storage boxes. The heavy boxes are then hefted up onto the top shelf of our storage closet/pantry, with all manner of odd-sized/shaped things piled on top.

So, any missing item gets to spend the year sitting on the shelf in the closet surveying our comings and goings. (Since this is also the closet where Rita's treats reside, we come and go a lot!)

Because of the "there's always one!" problem, I usually do a military-precision-style sweep of the house, going through each room several times to make sure no one gets left behind. I pile everything on/around the dining room table, and when I'm sure I've got it all, I start cramming, er, packing.

Well, I really thought I'd rounded up and exiled everyone this year, until Rita pointed out that we had a stow-away hiding between two dining room chairs.

Wordless Wednesday: Comfort and Joy

Thought I'd share with you the front of our Christmas card for this year:

Monday Mischief: Everything Is Irresistible

It's Christmas, and Rita is finding everything irresistible. 

First of all, there's the "dogs at the beach" themed tree I put up. She LOVES the smell of the starfish and shells on the tree! It's a bit of Momma-mischief to put something so smelly on the tree, but so far this year she's been good and hasn't stolen anything off the tree!

Wordless Wednesday: Before and After

Last week I shared this pic of Reggie after he and Rita had had a good play session, romping in the damp grass and through the flower beds:

Wordy Wednesday: Thankful! #ShareGratitude

Thursday is one of my most favorite days of the year here in the US: Thanksgiving!

So, in the spirit of a holiday that is all about gratitude (and FOOD - one of me and Rita's fave things!), we are joining the Share Gratitude hop!

I hope you don't mind if I get a little wordy, while I share a combined list for Rita and me.