"Invincible Chains"... Not so Invincible

So, Tom was out of town not this past weekend but the weekend before. When he is gone I always feel bad for the dogs because they don't get as much attention when he isn't around. We are usually home at different times during the day so the dogs don't get left alone for more than about 4 hours by themselves. When he is gone it turns into more like 8-12 hours so you know why I feel guilty. Lately it has been really nice outside so most of that time is spent in the yard but when they have to stay in the house I like to make it up to them by getting them treats or toys. I went to Target and they had these monster looking chain toys that were called..."Invincible Chains" well...nothing is truely invincible when it comes to Shirley.


However, I never thought she would get through these things as quickly as she did. I really thought that Shirley and Riley would get right into a match of tug of war with the things. Shirley wouldn't let Riley near the thing. She took it and immediately (I'm talking less than 30 seconds) had the thing broke apart. I was so mad I went right to get the camera and she already had 4 chunks eaten off like little rubber tootsie rolls!!!

This is where her obsessive compulsive doggie disorder takes over and she is not satisfied until the thing is in a million pieces! I decided to let her go for a while just to see how quick she could demolish one ring.

Less than 3 minutes later she had one ring completely into 1/2 inch to 1 inch pieces...she just kept going around the ring and spitting them out!!! I decided to take the pictures and attatch them to an angry email to the PW pet product people. I told them how much their Invicible Chain sucked!!! I got an email back the next day saying they think the toy we got must have been defective and they would send me a new one. Well, its been a week and we haven't got one in the mail but I will keep you posted, until then I would stay away from the Invincible Chain toys for your dogs, cuz they aren't so invincible!!!

Boring day.

So I really haven't forgot about the blog, I just have had nothing interesting to say for the past week. I really didn't do much over the weekend except for laundry and church. Tom was out of town again for Army stuff so I was home alone!!! :( We are still working on getting carpet installed...

We had Home Depot come out and measure and then one of my patients at work told me about a friend of his that does carpet so we are having him come out and do an estimate on Friday... so hopefully we will be getting carpet installed after Tom gets done with finals.

We are also trying to get the roof done this spring. Tom met a guy down the street from our house that does roof's and we've seen some of his work so we are going to try to get him over for an estimate here in the near future.

I am looking forward to getting out of town this weekend. I have a baseball game this weekend and am off to Chicago for Lisa's baby shower on Saturday.

Day Off

Last night we went over to a friend from work's house, Jen and Kendall. Me met up with a couple of other couples. We call it our married people night. It was a lot of fun. The only down side was that we were going to bring the dogs with us cuz they live on about 3 acres that backs up to woods, but it was supposed to storm so they had to stay home. We had a bonfire and grilled burgers and brats and then made smores for dessert. yummy! When it started to rain we moved inside. We had a good time hanging out and made it home by 11. Not bad.

Today Tom had to get up and go to school. He left early so that he could go to the gym and I slept in till 9 o'clock!!! I hung out around the house till 10 then picked up a script at Walgreen's, went to the post office and then took the truck to Midas. We've been have squealing issues and Kendall works at Midas. He thought from last night that we had a bad pully and not the belt like we had thought. Turns out he thinks we hav 4 bad pullies and its gonna cost us about $300 bucks in parts. Good news is he said he would fix it at his house instead of the shop so we don't have to pay labor. Talked to Drew and he thinks it might be fixed with a simple can of WD-40. so, I think we'll try that option first!

I got back home and had lunch out on the patio with the puppies then off to the DMV to get my TN driver's license which my WI license expired on my birthday 3 1/2 months ago. I guess it was time. The TN DMV system is so outdated and slow. You have to sit in line for 45 minutes just to tell the person why you are there and for them to give you the form to fill out. There was about 50 other people in there with me and only about 4 workers there. I actually didn't have to wait that long. They called for me in about another 45 minutes. Some people were there waiting for 3 hours, WOW! So now I am officially a resident of Tennessee, yikes! I guess I can officially write into my vocabulary, dang, ain't never and ya'll!! :)

Tomorrow it's back to work with the clinic and games. Soccer game tomorrow night at 7pm so looks like another 14 hour day!!! :)

Happy Easter!!!!!!!!1

I hope everyone is having a marvelous Easter. We have a beautiful day here today. The sun is shining, blue skies and about 60 degrees!! Welcome, Spring!!!!

Today we got up early and went to the 8 am mass. We started going to the Catholic Church just up the street from our house a few weeks ago. Its not your typical Catholic Church. There are no kneelers and they have a "band" for a choir. The past couple of weeks its been a lady with a guitar and a lady with a flute and then the "singers". Today was a litte different. They had a "Jimmy Hendrix" style electric guitar and a drum set. The songs were really corny and it was just plain weird!!! Not what I am used to at church at all!! I guess we will get used to it after a while but I can't wait to move and get to a more traditional church.

We are about to do some yard work. We have to mow the lawn today for the 4th time this season. Later today we are going to a friends house to have a bonfire and a cook out. Tom and Kendall are going to work on changing the belt in the truck...

So we have a lot to do today, it should be fun.

Here is Shirley and Riley playing with their Easter Basket presents from Grandma and Grandpa!!! They love them. Thanks Mom and Dad...we loved our Easter Basket!

Hanne and Lindsey Donna and Steve come for a visit!

I am off of work for a 4 day weekend!! How bout that!! Yesterday was a day filled with more thunderstorms and tornados, again! Tom was at school yesterday while I was at home and he called to make sure I was okay, I hadn't even turned the TV on yet, I was busy reading my new book. He told me that there were tornado warnings in Murfreesboro and he was stuck taking cover in one of the buildings at school. It turned out that there were just bad storms here in Nashville, but in Murfreesboro there were several tornados that touched down... He made it out okay but there was a lot of damage all over that town and I will be praying for everyone that lost their homes yesterday...

I guess that's why I am thankful that Donna and Steve and the girls were running late yesterday...they weren't caught up in the bad weather, unfortunately though they were caught up in bad traffic. Their 10 hour trip to our house from Disney turned into 14!!! They made it to our house around 1:45 am for a rest from the road.

Lindsey was sound alseep when they got here, cuddled up on Donna's lap. We had the dogs outside and when we told her they were coming in she woke up with so much energy... She has an incredible love for animals. She had a great time throwing the ball for Shirley.

I think Linsdey was ready to take Riley back to Wisconsin with her!!!

Hanne was pretty sleepy and shy but it really was good to see all of them. Hopefully next time they will be able to stay a little longer. 2:30 am they were back on the road headed to Madison. Steve really wanted to get home, which I don't blame him they still had a long drive ahead of them and it is so much better to just be home after a long vacation like they had.

Spring-urgh!!!

Spring sports are here and that means that I am going crazy!!! There are so many games scheduled over the next month and half that I don't even know how they are going to play them all...and that means that making plans for myself from now until school is out is pretty impossible. What does that mean...I am a big ball of stress!!! Some days I think I am going to be done early and I find out at the last minute that something is rescheduled...like tomorrow...6:30 baseball game, yippy. Yesterday everything got rained out.

I am getting excited though...Thursday Donna and Steve are stopping by Nashville on their way home from Disney with Hanne and Lindsey...Its going to be so nice to have company down here. I am getting pretty lonely. They are going to be the first of several visitors. Mom and Dad are coming down in the middle of May and Patrick and Soumya say they are coming at the end of May.

The last couple of days I haven't been feeling good, not sure if I am fighting a cold or allergies... I have never had a problem with allergies but I guess people from Tennessee have a problem with the pollen down here???

We got an email from Lisa today...She sent us Ultrasound pictures. They did the 3D thing, those are pretty neat...she is getting closer and closer...I can't wait to get up to Chicago to see her baby bump at the shower...also it will be nice to get out of Nashville for a couple days.

survived the storm!!

I spent a little longer in the training room than I wanted to today but wanted to make sure the weather was going to be okay to go home. Turns out I decided it was okay to go home right in the middle of rush hour traffic, smart one Amanda!!! What usually takes me 15 min took 45 today. I usually don't go home at 5 and especially not in the rain. If it sprinkles here it slows down traffic. Seems everyone gets excited and slows down to 4 mph then that causes accidents and the chain of stupidity continues... I've said it before and I'll say it again...People in TN are the worst drivers in the country, I swear they will give anyone a license here...Holy Cow!!!

The rain let up not to long after I got home, so we fed the puppies and they finally decided that it was safe to go outside and play. We knew they would get kinda soggy but felt bad for them for being trapped inside all day. They had a good time out there but then we forgot about them and all of a sudden the skies opened up again.

The poor puppies were trapped outside in the pouring down rain!!! They were waiting patiently by the back door for us to let them in as we rushed to the back door to get them.

At least this time we didn't have to give them baths, it was raining so hard they were already squeeky clean from their "rain shower" all they needed was a toweling off!!!!!

Scary Weather

So I am sitting here in my training room by myself because I don't want to go home and drive through a tornado. We are having some serious scary weather here and for any of you that know me well, you know I DO NOT LIKE TORNADOs!!!!! So far so good, think they are all going to pass around us but they are letting all the kids go home but I want to stay for a little bit. A tornado has already touched down about 5 miles from my house so I am really hoping that my puppies are alright!!!!

Hi Trevor!!!!

I'm Tired!!!

Today has been quite a long day.(long couple of days actually!!) I worked from 7am till 11:00pm yesterday. I had to see patients in the clinic first, then we had a chili lunch so I felt obligated to stay to eat instead of going home for lunch like I usually do on Tuesday and Thursday. Then I went to go get my yearly TB test and then off to the high school. Most of our teams were away yesterday but we had a couple teams practice then a soccer game at 7pm. About 10 minutes left in the second half of the soccer game a kid broke his collar bone!! So off to the ER I went to make sure that the kid was taken care of over there. He got released about 11:00. Got to bed around 11:45 then up early this morning to go back to work. Thought I would be done early today since ALL of my teams are away, right. You wanna know the best part about my job. Realizing there is a Tennis match at 4:30 that I have to stay for when I thought I would be out of here at 5. Now looks like I'm staying till 7. So I went up and told the coaches that I have paper work to do and I am hanging out in the athletic training room until its over. I just can't sit out there today and watch Tennis of all sports!!! Yuck! Sorry tennis lovers! I hope everyone else is having a better day than me.





Here is a picture of me working...its football last fall but I thought I would add a picture today too.


Here's another, see, I can never escape laundry!!!!!!

Lazy Sunday!!!

We started today off slow. I actually fell asleep last night at 8:30. I think it might have had something to do with "Earth Hour". We shut all the lights out to watch TV. Would have gone out to have a fire but it was pretty soggy out there!! I also had to work all day yesterday at a track meet and oh how I love track!!! That pretty much exhausted me and we had some crazy storms here last night. So, after a big dinner, scary storms and a couple beers; I was out!!!

We were up pretty early last this morning and watched the news to see if there was any storm damage and really there wasn't much. We hung out for a little bit then went to church, went and bought us some new running shoes and then grocery shopping. That pretty much wore us out for the rest of the day. We came home and put all the groceries away and I put a pork roast in the crock pot.
Tom studied most of the afternoon.

So, our lives are pretty boring today as far as that goes unless you count watching a round or two of "puppy rumble" which keeps us entertained for a while.

We also got to talk to a lot of family today. We each got to talk to our Mommies today. I was on the phone with Kimmy and also heard from Drew...

We got some good news from Drew...He spent the weekend in California with Kendra and it looks like there will be another wedding coming soon. Drew asked Kendra to marry him on the beach at sunset...How romantic...Congratulations Drew and Kendra!!!