Dogs and Jen: Home Edition

My idea of making a few creative batches of bones has sort of taken over. I have been making bones every day - more than my girls can keep up with. I really enjoy doing it and experimenting, so I decided I may as well try to support the habit.  So, I have started an online dog bakery. I put up a website and an Etsy shop (thanks Michelle for the suggestion). When I get a chance to write the code, there will be online ordering at the store and bones on Amazon as well. For now, give it a look - and buy your pooches some bones if you like!

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It hasn’t been a great year for my garden, from spring right through now. I’ve had plenty, but not the abundance I usually have. As evidence: I have been able to eat all the zucchini that my garden has produced. Yes, there were a few weeks where I ate it every day, but still - one person should not be able to keep up with a zucchini plant.

The main thing left growing is my watermelon vines. They have had only one watermelon that’s been slowly growing for what seems like a month. Then, all of a sudden this week, there are baby melons popping out all over the place. I think there are 10 on the vine now, and they get bigger every day. It seems like I’ll be looking for ways to use it come September.

Ok. My treat making has become a bit obsessive. I am definitely a person who expresses affection by making gifts and sharing things. Baking is also incredibly soothing for me, regardless of who is getting the results. Treat baking has turned out to be a great thing to help me to deal with K’s situation. I show her love, she loves the treats, and I get to bake in the process.

These little coconut balls are super easy to make, smell great, and the dogs love them. It’s also very easy to clean up after, since it is a dry dough that doesn’t leave a sticky mess. These made me crave coconut, but my human cookies did not come out nearly as well as these beautiful treats.

Ingredients
1.5 c brown rice flour
1.5 c oat flour
1 c unsweetened dried shreaded coconut
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1 t. cinnamon
1 c. milk

Directions
Mix the dry ingredients and then add everything else. Roll into small balls, about an inch in diameter, and flatten them a bit on the cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Optional Icing
The icing in the picture is very simple - some plain Greek yogurt with mashed strawberries to give it a pink color. Dip the cookies in the yogurt and then onto a plate of coconut. Refrigerate if you ice them.

K is a treat fiend. She will beg politely but relentlessly. Given her current situation, I have decided this is a good excuse for me to start using the doggie cookbooks I have. If I couldn’t be a professor, I would very much like to run a doggie bakery.

I bought The Organic Dog Biscuit Cookbook while browsing one day at my local dog boutique, Living Ruff. It has a lot of creative and interesting recipes. So, in the coming months, I’m going to work through a bunch of them and share the results here.

However, the first treat making exercise was using a recipe of my own for peanut butter dog treats. They let me use my bone-shaped cookie cutter, and they are a favorite for both dogs.

 K has been having a lot of problems lately. She started having seizures about a year-and-a-half ago. We did all sorts of tests then, but nothing showed up. Then this spring, she started having these weird mini-seizures where she knows what’s going on, but her whole body shivers violently. This understandably scares her a lot. These events have gone from one every few weeks to one or two a day in the last couple weeks.

We went back in to see the neurologist this week and he ordered another MRI. This time, they found something - a brain tumor. It is inoperable. I could do radiation and/or chemotherapy, but dogs who get that treatment live for about a year. K is 9-years-old, and 1 year is about how long I would expect for her even without the tumor. If we skip the cancer treatments and just give her prednisone and valium, the neurologist said I would get about half that time - 3 to 6 months. That’s what I’m planning to do. I don’t see why I should put her through the treatments and discomfort just to get a few more months.

For now, I am just hoping to keep her comfortable for as long as possible. We will have lots of walks and fetch and treats to make these last months as happy as they can be.  Still, it’s a very sad day.

Back in March, I posted that Cabinet Guy had allegedly ordered my doors. They apparently arrived in May sometime. I didn’t announce that here because, hey, what else is new. I told him to give the doors to Contractor Sal and never heard from him.

Then, yesterday, CG emails saying “I have had these doors for a while. When can I send Cabinet Assistant to install them”. I replied that I wanted Contractor Sal to do it, as I had told him in May. CG said that Contractor Sal was not qualified to do it (??!?!?!) and instead of arguing, I said fine.

I must give you text to understand what happened next:

My email: “Fine. Please give me a window when he will be here. I will not be
available in the late afternoon.”

CG’s response (read this carefully for future reference): “I can work around your schedule. I can send him there in the morning”

Do you read that as telling me that he will come here in the morning? I did. Yet the morning passed with no Assistant. I emailed at noon. And at 2. And at 4. Finally around 5pm, CG replies with this gem:

Jen,

You did not confirm with me that this morning was going to work for you. I checked my email throughout the morning times and had no email from you. I said on my last email that I can work around your schedule and that I can send him in the morning. But needed a confirmation from you

I m sorry for any misunderstanding.

Cabinet Guy

Well, dear readers, I lost it. I was angry at being stood up and when I saw this nonsense I started literally shaking because I was so mad. I gave myself a few minutes to try to calm down. I didn’t calm down. Instead, I sent this email and left a voicemail (since he wouldn’t take my calls) with identical content:

Cabinet Guy-

Are you serious? You said you would send him in the morning. What was
there to confirm about that? You did not ask for a confirmation, did
not ask for a time slot. I cannot believe you are trying to pull an
excuse like this over on me. The levels of unprofessionalism you have
repeatedly subjected me to in this process are mind boggling.

I am left with very few options here. It has been 2 and a half YEARS
that I have been trying to get this resolved with you. Let me make
things very clear. I want the doors delivered to Sal on Monday. I
don’t care where he is, where you have to go, or what else you are
doing. He is perfectly capable of installing them (despite your claims
to the contrary) and, frankly, has done much better work than the
hacking you did when you came here before. Do not try to come to my
house, do not try to send someone to my house. Deliver them to Sal. I
have cced Sal on this message with our correspondence below so he is
aware of the situation.

If I do not hear that doors are delivered on Monday, I will be
contacting my lawyer and I can assure you that I will make sure this
mess costs you more in legal fees than you got from me for the
cabinets in the first place. I have left you a voice mail with these
same details.

-Jen

Magically, he called back 15 minutes later. And get this. First, he said that he never said he WOULD send the guy this morning. He said “I wrote and said I CAN send the guy. C-A-N can.” Yep, he spelled at me. He insisted that it was 100% my fault that the guy didn’t come. If he were here, I’m pretty sure I would have punched him.

Then he goes on to tell me that none of this was his fault. He said it was MY fault because I wanted doors that the manufacturer had to make. He said it was my fault for waiting so long to hear from him. He said he took no responsibility for any of the problems. He had no interest in responding to my assertion that 2.5 years was not a reasonable time for this to take.

I repeated my next step - doors by Monday or lawyer. He said “I don’t want to go down that route with you, Jen.” And I said “You won’t have a choice, Cabinet Guy.  You will get served and you will have to respond.”

And 15 minutes after that, the doors were sitting outside my door. That’s right. I have the doors. They are the right size (Contractor Sal measured for them). They are the right color. They are the right pattern. They are sitting in front of their future home on my cabinet.

The Saga of Cabinet Guy appears to be over. All it took was a serious threat of legal action.

Let’s think of what has happened since I started my kitchen renovation, which has been held up only by cabinet guy.

• Bush was still President and Rod Blajojevich was serving as Governor of Illinois
• The country met Sarah Palin

…actually, that’s already pretty depressing, so I’m going to stop there.

Let’s think about what this means in the bigger picture. Cabinet Guy has finally delivered. It’s pretty close to hell freezing over. Up next…a Cubs World Series win?????

Well, for now, I will just enjoy this victory and the idea that perhaps my kitchen will be finished before I have to replace the next appliance.

For the last two years, I’ve planted raspberries on the side of my yard. They come from the nursery as little sticks with roots, and the proceed to die as little sticks with roots. I need some well established bushy plants, not little sticks.

I’ve seen bushes at Whole Foods and finally I bought some today. I got a blackberry, kiwi, fix, and blueberry. Check out how many blueberries are on that bush!

Here’s to these living and producing much fruit!

My dishwasher has been slowly creating problems. The soap door doesn’t always open and even when it does, the dishes weren’t getting clean. I finally decided to get a new dishwasher.

I spent FIVE HOURS trying to install it tonight. The largest problem came in attaching the water line. The joint that the installation manual said I needed (and the one I went to the store to buy) was not what the dishwasher needed. After a second trip for a second joint, I attached the lines and they drip drip dripped. I tighened, I loosened. I tilted it onto its side, got it to be leak free, and then it would leak when I stood it upright. I would get it to be drip free upright, and then it would start to leak when I got it pushed in.

Sigh.

I finally got it set by switching the ends of the hose (dad’s suggestion). That stopped the leaks under the dishwasher. It leaked a bit by the water connection but with proper tuning it doesn’t leak anymore. I even ran it through a cycle and it’s leak free. It seems very tenuous to me, but it’s working.

HOWEVER, it is missing the front handle. That was nowhere in the box. As I type this post I am on a chat with the Sears rep trying to get it sent to me.

Pictures tomorrow when it’s light and I’m less irritated.

Last night I emailed Cabinet Guy to check on my doors. He says:


Hello Jennifer,

Your cabinet doors are in.. Since these are custom door, the company is charging $145 per door.

First, I have no idea why he didn’t contact me to tell me the doors were in. He just decided to wait for me to find him and check.

Second, I reminded him very clearly that the only reason custom doors had to be made was because they sent the wrong cabinet in the first place. I can’t believe the dude is trying to get more money out of me. It’s been over TWO YEARS!!!!!!

More updates as we potentially reach the kitchen end game…

It’s been over 90 degrees the last couple days and over 80 for nearly a week. I’ve had the house open and, last night, I found several ants had made their way into the house. This year, I am fully prepared for the ants and I am determined to wipe them off the face of the earth. Or at least the face of the area immediately around my house.

The ortho home defense max barrier has been applied indoors and out. That helps, but my new strategy is a full on  Terro attack. Last summer I discovered the outdoor baits. I had one left and put it out a couple weeks ago. It is now being frequently visited. However, there are still ants foraging all over the patio and I saw many crawl over the Ortho barrier I had sprayed down. I went to True Value tonight and picked up more. There are now 7 of them in the backyard and on one side of the house. Hopefully by morning the ants will be noshing away at every station and dragging that lovely stuff back to their nests.