If you are wondering where I went, I'm still here! I've just been busy plotting my Rage Against the Fleas. Oh, yeah, you read that right! FLEAS! And yes, yes, I am actually going to admit to them...those pesky little things that only unsanitary people have in their homes...or so we like to think!
Let me preface my flea story with a few facts: 1) Zoe is an inside dog. She goes outside to use the bathroom and on the way back in likes to take the time to bark at the neighbors and the parade of pets that roam our neighborhood, but that's about it. She doesn't spend a lot of time outside. 2) We've had Zoe since she was a puppy and she will celebrate her 6th birthday at the end of the month. In those 6 years, I've never had a flea infestation in my home and Zoe has never really scratched much...meaning she's never had a flea problem. 3) We've always just given Zoe her flea medication during the hot months only, since fleas aren't supposed to be able to live in low temperatures and since the best flea medication out there--Frontline--is so stinkin' expensive.
Last week, during what has been THE coldest week so far this winter (and not to be confused with this week, which has been the hottest week of winter so far), Zoe started scratching up a storm...like ALL THE TIME. The dog couldn't go even 5 minutes without scratching. I held her down a few times and didn't see any fleas. I doubted she had fleas since I didn't see any on her and hadn't seen any anywhere else. Plus, I was thinking the whole "fleas don't come around during the winter" thing. She kept scratching and Matt and I started wondering what the heck was wrong with her. Last weekend we went up to North LA and on the way bought some flea medication and put it on Zoe when we got to my parents. Zoe didn't scratch the whole weekend away. We thought she was all better! Yeah, that would have been way too easy!
So, we get home on Sunday and IMMEDIATELY the dog starts scratching again and I begin thinking that she is allergic to something in our home and tell Matt that he'll probably need to take her to the vet to get her checked out. Monday night, I'm sitting on the couch in our sunroom (which is where Zoe spends most of her waking time) and a flea appears on my arm and right then, I start planning my search-and-destroy mission. It was on!
The thing about me, though, is that I have to research everything. That's just how I'm wired. So, in the process, I learned WAY too much about fleas...enough to set my imagination into overdrive and to make me think that my house is crawling with invisible-to-the-eye flea eggs. I planned my attack for Tuesday night after work. It included washing every bed linen, jacket, blanket, and rug that could fit in my washer. Then it involved a thorough--and I mean, thorough--vacuuming of the house and the mattresses and the couches and chairs and rugs and anything I couldn't fit in the washer. The kind of vacuuming you would do if you were moving out of a rental house and wanted your deposit back...and where you have to throw away the bag from the vacuum cleaner afterwards in the OUTSIDE trash so those little buggers don't hatch and get out! Then, I sprayed--well, more like doused--the furniture and mattresses and rugs (you get the picture...any fabric in sight) with flea spray for the home. And then I drowned my sorrows in a M&M Sonic Blast and called it a night, but not after applying another dose of "monthly" flea medication to Zoe. I was hopeful that I was triumphant and I was itching, well, like a dog with fleas, because I felt like they were crawling all over me too! (Are you itching yet?)
We resprayed the house on Wednesday. On Thursday, I was worn out and just started praying that God would take them away. Probably the craziest prayer request I've ever had, but hey, He cares about everything, right? Then, tonight, that dog is still scratching some (and this is after Matt took her to get a flea bath too), so Matt applied a THIRD monthly dose and she seems to have calmed down some. Hopefully, we haven't poisoned her in the process, considering we applied 3 months of flea medication to her in one week! She seems to still be kickin' though. Tomorrow...oh, dreaded tomorrow...I'm going to revacuum like my life (or really in this case, my sanity) depended on it and respray everything AGAIN. And if they are still here, than kudos to them for sticking it out, but I'm just going to dump the couch on the road and let the sucker who picks it up worry about them! (It was a hand-me-down anyway, and we plan to give it away when we move to the apartment this summer.)
So, now that I've taken 6 paragraphs to just simply say, "we have fleas," let me share a few other things with you...like the 52 Questions, Week 3. I'm not loving this question AT ALL. It's kinda boring to me, but I guess it's an important thing to have people who hold me accountable, so if you comment or email me often, please feel free to ask me how the whole "self-discipline" thing is going. I know it will help me stay focused!
We've had a dilemma the last few weeks in trying to find a babysitter for Juliette a few hours a week. Matt had worked out his schedule so that he could be with Juliette except for 6 1/2 hours a week. Since it was so few hours, we didn't want to pay $105 a week to put her in daycare. (You have to pay the full-time rate, whether they go full-time or not.) We asked the preschool director to help us and she sent an email to the students in her classes (early childhood education/family life studies), but no one was interested. We originally needed someone for Tuesdays and Thursdays from Noon until 2 pm and on Fridays from 8:30 am until 11 am. We figured the Friday time slot was what was hurting our chances of finding someone, so after talking to my boss, we decided that Juliette could hang out in my office on Friday mornings. Ms. Boudreaux, the Graduate Assistant and one of the three main teachers at Juliette's preschool, agreed to watch Juliette for us on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we are SO happy to have her. Juliette loves her and was thrilled to have her come and play with her this week. And, being the good little photographer that Juliette is--maybe she'll be a future scrapbooker!--she thought a picture was in order too. This was on the camera when I got home:
This is Ms. Boudreaux!
Hope everyone has a great weekend! (Please pray I get rid of these fleas...I'm serious!!)
Let me preface my flea story with a few facts: 1) Zoe is an inside dog. She goes outside to use the bathroom and on the way back in likes to take the time to bark at the neighbors and the parade of pets that roam our neighborhood, but that's about it. She doesn't spend a lot of time outside. 2) We've had Zoe since she was a puppy and she will celebrate her 6th birthday at the end of the month. In those 6 years, I've never had a flea infestation in my home and Zoe has never really scratched much...meaning she's never had a flea problem. 3) We've always just given Zoe her flea medication during the hot months only, since fleas aren't supposed to be able to live in low temperatures and since the best flea medication out there--Frontline--is so stinkin' expensive.
Last week, during what has been THE coldest week so far this winter (and not to be confused with this week, which has been the hottest week of winter so far), Zoe started scratching up a storm...like ALL THE TIME. The dog couldn't go even 5 minutes without scratching. I held her down a few times and didn't see any fleas. I doubted she had fleas since I didn't see any on her and hadn't seen any anywhere else. Plus, I was thinking the whole "fleas don't come around during the winter" thing. She kept scratching and Matt and I started wondering what the heck was wrong with her. Last weekend we went up to North LA and on the way bought some flea medication and put it on Zoe when we got to my parents. Zoe didn't scratch the whole weekend away. We thought she was all better! Yeah, that would have been way too easy!
So, we get home on Sunday and IMMEDIATELY the dog starts scratching again and I begin thinking that she is allergic to something in our home and tell Matt that he'll probably need to take her to the vet to get her checked out. Monday night, I'm sitting on the couch in our sunroom (which is where Zoe spends most of her waking time) and a flea appears on my arm and right then, I start planning my search-and-destroy mission. It was on!
The thing about me, though, is that I have to research everything. That's just how I'm wired. So, in the process, I learned WAY too much about fleas...enough to set my imagination into overdrive and to make me think that my house is crawling with invisible-to-the-eye flea eggs. I planned my attack for Tuesday night after work. It included washing every bed linen, jacket, blanket, and rug that could fit in my washer. Then it involved a thorough--and I mean, thorough--vacuuming of the house and the mattresses and the couches and chairs and rugs and anything I couldn't fit in the washer. The kind of vacuuming you would do if you were moving out of a rental house and wanted your deposit back...and where you have to throw away the bag from the vacuum cleaner afterwards in the OUTSIDE trash so those little buggers don't hatch and get out! Then, I sprayed--well, more like doused--the furniture and mattresses and rugs (you get the picture...any fabric in sight) with flea spray for the home. And then I drowned my sorrows in a M&M Sonic Blast and called it a night, but not after applying another dose of "monthly" flea medication to Zoe. I was hopeful that I was triumphant and I was itching, well, like a dog with fleas, because I felt like they were crawling all over me too! (Are you itching yet?)
We resprayed the house on Wednesday. On Thursday, I was worn out and just started praying that God would take them away. Probably the craziest prayer request I've ever had, but hey, He cares about everything, right? Then, tonight, that dog is still scratching some (and this is after Matt took her to get a flea bath too), so Matt applied a THIRD monthly dose and she seems to have calmed down some. Hopefully, we haven't poisoned her in the process, considering we applied 3 months of flea medication to her in one week! She seems to still be kickin' though. Tomorrow...oh, dreaded tomorrow...I'm going to revacuum like my life (or really in this case, my sanity) depended on it and respray everything AGAIN. And if they are still here, than kudos to them for sticking it out, but I'm just going to dump the couch on the road and let the sucker who picks it up worry about them! (It was a hand-me-down anyway, and we plan to give it away when we move to the apartment this summer.)
So, now that I've taken 6 paragraphs to just simply say, "we have fleas," let me share a few other things with you...like the 52 Questions, Week 3. I'm not loving this question AT ALL. It's kinda boring to me, but I guess it's an important thing to have people who hold me accountable, so if you comment or email me often, please feel free to ask me how the whole "self-discipline" thing is going. I know it will help me stay focused!
We've had a dilemma the last few weeks in trying to find a babysitter for Juliette a few hours a week. Matt had worked out his schedule so that he could be with Juliette except for 6 1/2 hours a week. Since it was so few hours, we didn't want to pay $105 a week to put her in daycare. (You have to pay the full-time rate, whether they go full-time or not.) We asked the preschool director to help us and she sent an email to the students in her classes (early childhood education/family life studies), but no one was interested. We originally needed someone for Tuesdays and Thursdays from Noon until 2 pm and on Fridays from 8:30 am until 11 am. We figured the Friday time slot was what was hurting our chances of finding someone, so after talking to my boss, we decided that Juliette could hang out in my office on Friday mornings. Ms. Boudreaux, the Graduate Assistant and one of the three main teachers at Juliette's preschool, agreed to watch Juliette for us on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we are SO happy to have her. Juliette loves her and was thrilled to have her come and play with her this week. And, being the good little photographer that Juliette is--maybe she'll be a future scrapbooker!--she thought a picture was in order too. This was on the camera when I got home:
This is Ms. Boudreaux!While I was working on this blog post, I watched some of the Haiti telethon. Haiti has been heavy on my heart and it's sad to say, I usually distance myself from non-U.S. tragedies, but I haven't on this one. I'm not really sure why I do that...maybe it's just a coping mechanism or a way for me to not have to live up to the reality of third world countries and how horrible their living conditions are. I haven't watched ANY news coverage of Haiti, but what I've found and what I've been reading is better than the news coverage could do any day. I read blogs and one of the blogs that I read is a girl in California. On one of her blogs last week, she linked to someone she knows, Kristen Howerton, who is an American, and was in Haiti--in Port Au Prince--when the earthquake happened. She was there with her infant daughter visiting a little boy that they have been trying to adopt for 2 years now. She had to leave him behind and was evacuated (like almost all the Americans were) by the military. Since last week, she has been trying to get humanitarian parole for her son, so that he can come live with them in the U.S. and finish the adoption process from here. Tonight, on her blog, she posted that he is on a military plane headed to Orlando and that her husband is there waiting for him to arrive. You can read their blog here: www.thehowertons.blogspot.com.
The Howertons son was among 80 orphans at Maranatha Orphanage in Haiti, which is part of Heartline Ministries. All but 7 of those orphans are on that plane to Orlando tonight and will be handed over to their adoptive parents. One of those 7 orphans, though, belongs to the Wyatts of West Monroe. I don't know them, but I happened to see a link on the Howertons page, followed it and realized they are from there. Surprisingly, though, the Wyatts will be receiving a baby girl from Haiti also (this was a last minute thing), who is on that plane. So, although, they aren't getting the little girl they've been trying to adopt for two years, they are getting another one and their other one will be joining them very soon. (There was some paperwork issues.) You can visit their blog here: www.four2six.wordpress.com.
And, I have one more blog that I really think you should get an eye on. The Livesays are missionaries to Haiti who work for Heartline Ministries (who has the Maranatha Orphanage). Troy and Tara Livesay have been blogging daily about the earthquake and what they've been doing. Their blog is more "real" than the news can give you, so if you are interested, you should check it out: www.livesayhaiti.blogspot.com.
OK...so I know that was a lot, so just hang in there with me for one more picture of Miss Juliette, sporting her new boots. I could just eat her up!
The Howertons son was among 80 orphans at Maranatha Orphanage in Haiti, which is part of Heartline Ministries. All but 7 of those orphans are on that plane to Orlando tonight and will be handed over to their adoptive parents. One of those 7 orphans, though, belongs to the Wyatts of West Monroe. I don't know them, but I happened to see a link on the Howertons page, followed it and realized they are from there. Surprisingly, though, the Wyatts will be receiving a baby girl from Haiti also (this was a last minute thing), who is on that plane. So, although, they aren't getting the little girl they've been trying to adopt for two years, they are getting another one and their other one will be joining them very soon. (There was some paperwork issues.) You can visit their blog here: www.four2six.wordpress.com.
And, I have one more blog that I really think you should get an eye on. The Livesays are missionaries to Haiti who work for Heartline Ministries (who has the Maranatha Orphanage). Troy and Tara Livesay have been blogging daily about the earthquake and what they've been doing. Their blog is more "real" than the news can give you, so if you are interested, you should check it out: www.livesayhaiti.blogspot.com.
OK...so I know that was a lot, so just hang in there with me for one more picture of Miss Juliette, sporting her new boots. I could just eat her up!
Hope everyone has a great weekend! (Please pray I get rid of these fleas...I'm serious!!)