Random things because Flickr is being slow about letting me add my photos to all the Pools I’ve joined:

We got a dog. She is 3 year old Bichon Frise, and we named her Chloe. I posted her photo on Flickr some time ago, but didn’t mention her here. I’m not sure why. Anyways, the background story is that I have a friend that is involved with Bichon Rescue. She discovered that another local rescue group in Houston had a 3 year old female Bichon that needed a home. I went to pick her up for my friend to add to the Bichon system, and by the time we arrived at her house we had decided we wanted to keep her. However, we have two cats. And neither Mike nor I have ever owned a dog. (We babysat my friend Chelsey’s two Bichons last fall and fell in love with the breed, and had decided then that we wanted an adult female.) So it was suggested that we “foster” her for a week, decide how it was working out, and from there determine if we wanted to keep her or not.

She gets along pretty well with Murphy. Mona has stopped hissing at her, but they are not going to be friends any time soon. Considering Mona hasn’t taken to Murphy, and we’ve owned him for 5 years now, I wasn’t really expecting much there. She is potty trained (no accidents! Yeah!) and crate trained. We think she was “debarked” (where they remove part of the dog’s barking system – very sad) so she has a mini-bark.

She was owned by a breeder and was part of a breeding pair, but wasn’t putting out enough so she was dumped. She is now spayed, so her puppy days are over. She needs some socialization work, and some general training, but we’re working on that. I’m just happy that she is trained to potty outside and walks well on a leash.

We’re feeding her a raw diet. (Or as some call it, the BARF diet. But “BARF” is so … well, barf.) It is definitely helping the tear-staining and face staining that dogs can get from the color in some dog foods. She loooooves her raw food.

I haven’t knit anything for her yet, although she does own an adorable pink “jacket“. Matter of fact, I haven’t knit anything in weeks. I think the last time I picked up the needles was when we were in Kentucky. I was *zooming* along on my Charlotte’s Web shawl, and then – bam! – it was like I hit a wall and I stopped. I only have 8 rows left. They are on the long end of the shawl, so they are looooong rows, but still. No excuse when 4 are pattern rows and 4 are just purling rows. I hope to finish it this weekend.

Last weekend we went to the Frio River. I’ve lived in Texas for 20 years now (for the most part) and I had never been to the rivers out west to go tubing. It just wasn’t appealing to me. I hate to go in rivers and lakes. I can’t stand it when I can’t see what is in the water. (Galveston, I’m fine – but no rivers or lakes.) No one bothered to tell me that the Frio is CLEAR! A clear river. One that I could see the bottom of for the most part. It was amazing. I’ll post photos as soon as I find my card reader and get through the rest of the honeymoon photos.

Another amazing thing about the Frio? We had no TV out there. No internet access. No phones. Chelsey & Doug both commented that they thought Mike & I would be twitching without those things. Ironic, because I didn’t miss them at all. I knew I wouldn’t. I have been boycotting the computer a good portion of the summer. I get online, check the Helpdesk, read 3-4 blogs, and get offline. Sometimes I check my personal e-mail, but really only 2-3 times a week. (I owe some of you responses, and they are coming, I promise.) My days of being online 24/7 are long over. Because of work, I did go to the local Internet cafe and get online, but it was quick and then I was off again.

Being at the river reminded me just how much I really, really, really want a digital SLR. Really bad. So I can take really cool photos. My “wishlist” for my birthday and Christmas this year is cash to add to my digital SLR fund.

Instead of knitting, and when I haven’t been taking pictures or floating down the river, I’ve been reading. I just finished reading Ahab’s Wife. It was good, but not great. I really liked it to a point, but the ending – well, it just started to feel rushed and a bit too contrived. I don’t know. I will say that there is definitely some beautiful and strong imagery created by the words in the book, and I enjoyed that. It painted a good picture.

Oh, and one last random Chloe tidbit… when I couldn’t think of a name for days, I started a brainstorming list. I read sites with dog names. I thought of shows that we watch on TV. Then it came to me. Mike & I always talked about the cuteness factor of Chloe, Josie’s daugher, on Starting Over. So when I saw “Chloe” on one of the pet name lists, I knew. It was the perfect name. As soon as I can get her over being camera shy, I’ll share photos of her. Meantime, watch Starting Over. Good stuff.

Now I need to start reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before someone in blogland spoils it for me. I already know one fact more than I would like to know. I hate it when that happens.

All of my random thoughts, rolled in to one. What more could you ask for?

:: My Dad is still in the hospital. I went to see him after my test this morning; the doctor told him he will probably get out “maybe Friday”. Hopefully they got that right. His arm is looking better, but still not normal. It’s getting there though.

:: I had my arterial doppler this morning. The tech said that everything looks good. The doctor’s office should have the results by Friday.

:: I had a quick lunch today with Emily, Michelle, Natalie and Ashley. It was great to get to see them! We must do that again soon.

:: Did you know that BlogShares has closed down? I wish I knew how much I had had in my acocunt before the end.

:: Speaking of endings – did anyone else catch that most recent ER? With Dr. Romano? And the … ? I laughed. I laughed hard. He was such a jackmonkey – it was a fitting way to get rid of him, wasn’t it? It still amuses me. Is ER on tomorrow night? I wonder if anyone has finally figured out that Romano is missing? Wow. To end his character like that. Priceless.

:: Speaking of Emily – I’ve heard what the two names would be if they were hyphenated when she gets married. I can’t tell you what it would be, but I can tell you – it’s hysterical! No wonder she wants to change it!

:: Don’t you hate it when you think of things that you want to blog about, but by the time you can sit down to write about them you have nothing to say? Yeah, I know that feeling. I have several “unfinished” blog posts in my mind. I always wonder if other people do that too. Do you mentally compose blog posts hours before you can write them?

Yeah, I told you it was random…