It's Quitting Time

My last day at Accenture is Thursday 5/20. I'm leaving the land of consulting and getting a "normal" job. I've accepted a position at Finish Line, here in Indianapolis.

This will be the first time in... 10 years?... that I've worked in the same town I live in, and am not working full time while going to school full time.

What will I do with all that free time?!?!!!

Oh, yeah, and Max

So, um, this is Max.




Max is a 7 year old basset hound we rescued about 3 weeks ago. Max had spent the last year+ of his life living on a tie-out in Southern Indiana. His family had lost their home to foreclosure and he was bounced around a bit.

Aaron saw Max on Petfinder, after the nice gal at Red Sky Rescue had convinced Max's caretakers to relinquish him if she could find an adopter. No family pet should live outside on a chain. He sent me the link, and I told him not to come home without the dog.

Max is perfectly healthy, except for the extra 15lbs he's carrying around (who isn't really?). He's already lost 5 lbs and he's got much more energy. He's just the sweetest guy.

We're still not sure whether we're keeping him, although we've fallen quite in love with fat old man. We're introducing him and Joe verrrry slowly to set them up for success.

Komen Race for the Cure

We participated in the Komen Race for the Cure this morning in downtown Indianapolis.





Aaron finished in about 24 minutes, me in 43. We had a great time. Our next 5k is in about 4 weeks at the beautiful Eagle Creek Park.

Adios, Argyle

I wish I had a better picture of when he first came to us... but we didn't call him the hairless wonder for nothing. He literally only had fur on the tip of his tail. The rest of him was just irritated, scabby skin. Poor guy. He had the worst case of demodex (mites) mange that I've ever seen.

He looks fantastic now though! All his fur has grown back and he's a happy, healthy, ENERGETIC little boy.

Two weeks ago I begged and pleaded to get Argyle in to the vet for to get neutered. He's starting to mount and hump things and I just really wanted to head that behavior off at the pass! Plus, it's GROSS to me to see a male dog with... parts.

Humane Society of Indianapolis agreed, so last Tuesday Argie went in for the SNIP. While he was there, the vet did another skin scraping and they are still finding demodex eggs. The vet decided to make him available for adoption and his new family can continue his treatment. I think she said "If you foster him until he's fully healed, you may as well just keep him". Hahahahahaha, NO.

I'll post another time why we don't do puppies, but the short of it is that they are a LOT OF WORK.

Anyway, Argie hung at our house for another week while he healed from his neuter, and then Monday morning we said our goodbyes and took him back to Humane Society of Indianapolis.

Good luck little guy. I know you will find a family that will ADORE you, and you're going to be a wonderful pet.

Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy Anniversary!

Sunday was our first wedding anniversary! HOORAY!

We weren't planning to do anything special, maybe stop at one of our favorite restaurants, hit up the Art and Architecture show at the fairgrounds, sleep in...

But midweek last week Aaron decided he needed some time away. Away from our dogs, our house, our normal every day lives.

On short notice, there's not much "away" one can do... but we made a quick little trip up to Chicago for the weekend. We left Saturday morning and came home Sunday night.

We did a little shopping, a little napping, a little eating... okay, a LOT of eating. You can't go to Chicago and not EAT.

It was a really nice weekend. We got to be romantic and silly and just relax.

Here's to year 2. May it be better than the last... which was REALLY awesome and will be hard to beat!

YEEEE HAW!

I'm antsy! Hurry up Saturday!

My mom and sisters will be coming to visit for a week. They arrive Saturday afternoon. As Annie requested, we've got probably 10 inches of snow on the ground, and there's snow showers predicted at least two days next week. Be careful what you ask for, *grin*.

I predict a week of fires, home cooked meals, videos and naps.

This will be their first visit since we bought the house a year ago. I can't wait to show it off, although, of course, there's a bunch of stuff I wish we'd gotten done. Oh well.

Daniel and Lexi will be coming to visit at the end of May. I feel very lucky!

Don't you want to KISS this face?

That's Argyle, our newest foster. He's been hanging out with us for a couple of weeks now, recovering from mange.

We hosted a fundraiser for the Humane Society of Indianapolis a few weeks ago, and this little guy was the star of the show.

By the way, the fundraiser made over $1000 for the medical fund at Humane Society. Not too shabby for my first event ever!

Busy Busy Busy, woah its 2010!

I'd like whomever is manning this train to slow it down a bit, please?

The last few weeks Aaron and I have been busy busy with prepping for a cocktail party we'll be throwing Saturday night. This party is a fundraiser for the Humane Society of Indianapolis's medical fund.

It started out with trying to raise funds for a single dog, Caine, who needed dental surgery. Unfortunately, Caine also suffered from seizures. On Nov 23, he suffered a massive seizure and could not be saved.

We decided to go ahead with the fundraiser. There's always dogs (and cats!) and HSI who need a little help.

We got a bunch of local businesses to donate alcohol and raffle items. My friend Heather and I will be ponying up the dough for the appetizers. It should be a fun little event.

Here's the flier. I'll post an update after the event to tell you all how much we raised!

Goodness

Where does the time go? It's been over a month since I updated last!

We went to San Diego for a few days around Thanksgiving and had a nice time. We participated in the Father Joe's Thanksgiving Day 5k which was really fun and a nice way to start out the day.

As soon as we got home, Aaron HAD to decorate the house for Christmas.


Then, two weeks ago, we got these little boogers to foster.


They are two lab mix puppies (almost 9 weeks old). Aaron named them Samantha (left) and Maxwell. They are super cute but puppies are such a pain in the butt! They cry, they poop everywhere, they chew everything! We took them to foster because they were too young to be fixed, so they couldn't be put up for adoption. They should be going back to the shelter soon, and they'll be gone-gone-gone to their forever home after that.

Other than that, it's business as usual. Our Christmas home vacation starts next week, so we'll enjoy hanging out at our house with no work to do!

Who Knew

Married life is awesome.

That is all.

A quick photo update

We went to a Punkin Patch!
Joe's such a handsome little devil!

Ellie Mae and Penny Lane. And yes, that IS Ellie's costume.

Bunky Raffit!

Cecil is helping Aaron work on the computer.

Meet Charlie

Charlie is a 6 year old Dutch rabbit. His owners surrendered him to our friend's vet clinic because they couldn't afford to pay for his medical treatment. He had an injury and a skin infection.


He's healing well, and acting like a good bunny should.

Problem is... bunnies have a life expectancy of 7-10 years. Charlie needs a home that is willing to accept this, but still give him the life he deserves.

Enter the Heilbron Zoo.

Charlie will be flying from Fargo, ND to Indianapolis on Sunday to become part of our family.

We're excited to have a bunky raffit!

The Local Flora and Fauna

One of the things I love about living in Indiana is how lush and colorful it is. There are TONS of trees (which should start changing colors soon, YAY!), grass, shrubs, flowers, you name it.

Of course, with all this flora, you get some local fauna too. At the old house we had a family of raccoons that would come visit in the middle of the night. I had to go out in the morning and stomp on the deck to scare them off before sending the dogs outside.

We haven't seen any raccoons at the new house, although we hear from the neighbor that they're around. Apparently they've eaten through her garbage can lids! However, we have seen a few of these cuties:


They may be cute, but we hear possums are nasty. We're not going to meet it to find out.

We also found one of THESE in our yard - YIKES!


It's a dreaded PennyMonster!

New Floor & New Dog

We figured out about two months ago that the little cat had decided the basement was her giant litterbox and was peeing on the carpet. YUCK. Cat urine is the worst - and it's near impossible to clean up.

We finally gave up and ripped all the carpet out. On a tip from Heather, we bought TrafficMaster Allure vinyl planks which are (relatively) inexpensive, waterproof, super durable and really easy to install. So easy, a dog can do it!


Joe really loves to help with home improvement projects.

Here's the floor, partially installed. I'll have to upload the finished pictures when I get home on Thursday.


Speaking of Joe, Penny has decided Joe is the model for how to be a good house pibble. See for yourself!

Hamburg(er), PA

Heather and I went out to Hamburg, PA on Friday to be bridesmaids in Rachael and Chris's Vow Renewal Ceremony.


We left Philly at 3:30PM and arrived in Hamburg about 3 hours later. It's supposed to be a 1.5 hour drive, but we got stuck in downtown Friday afternoon traffic. That is one thing I DO NOT miss about California.


Don't we look lovely? We clean up perty well, if I do say so myself.

I have no idea what's going on here. All I know is that my head hurt this morning. A lot.

Penny

Apparently we aren't done fostering after all. This little princess made her way to our house yesterday.

Our neighbor's coworker found her over the weekend running in the streets. They fell in love with her, but their two Jack Russell terriers wouldn't let her stay. They took her to their vet and she's not microchipped and it looks like she's littered recently. They mentioned it to our neighbor, who knows that we do pit bull rescue... and one thing led to another.

We're calling her Penny. Joe seemed to think she was pretty great, but of course, that could be because she isn't spayed. We'll be getting that taken care of next Tuesday (thank you Spay Neuter Services of Indianapolis!).

I guess she felt pretty comfortable at our house. She climbed on the couch and fell asleep next to Aaron. What a sweetie.

Woah

It's been almost a month since I updated last, and that was a pathetic attempt at best.

So, here's our summer, in pictures.

Insanity

I've been meaning to post about the gazillion things going on in our lives, but... there's a gazillion things going on in our lives.

Quick recap of the last 6 weeks-ish:

• Nichole helped rescue a dog from a high kill shelter. His name is Carter and he's hanging out at HSI until he gets adopted. BEEN ADOPTED!
• Our foster dog tried to eat Joe. Joe is okay, but we've decided not to foster any longer.
• We did a Community Pet Day where Aaron talked to people about neutering their dogs and Nichole gave vaccinations.
• Nichole turned 30!
• Nichole fell in love with Pilates
• We went to New Orleans for the second time
• Aaron volunteered to help organize our church's Habitat for Humanity home build

I'm sure there's other stuff I'm forgetting. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Pictures when I get home... in 1.5 weeks.

Happy Birthday United States... and Aaron!

On July 4, we celebrated the birthday of our great nation. We also celebrated the birthday of my great husband.


Our friends, Ryan and Danielle, and I had been planning a surprise party for about a month. The plan was for Ryan to take Aaron golfing that morning, and when they got back there would be a bunch of people ready to cookout and eat cake with Aaron to celebrate.


Of course, someone *ahem* had to go and get knee surgery, so golfing was out. Never fear, Ryan is a great liar! He told Aaron they were going out of town for the 4th and would we be able to come check on the dogs around 2pm?

They did a great job surprising him. The house was quiet, the dogs ran up to greet us at the door. Everyone was in the kitchen. As we approached the kitchen Aaron could see Danielle, but she just stood there until he walked forward a bit and everyone could yell "SURPRISE!".


It's not often that I get to surprise Aaron, because I'm a terrible liar and he usually needles me until I give in and spill the beans. I was super happy that he had no idea!

A bittersweet day

I spent a couple of hours at Humane Society of Indianapolis today. I love hanging out with the doggies.

I spent a lot of time with a good looking pibble named Rocky. Rocky was in the shelter about a month ago when I went to pick up Dex. He could be Dex's twin brother, but with a bigger head. Rocky was adopted a few weeks ago, but was returned on Tuesday because he "knocked over" the adopter's small child. An energetic, 60lb pit bull? Of course he knocked him down. Did he bite him? Did he growl? No. Annoying.

As I was leaving, I stopped in the Intake area to find out when Dex would be ready to come home. He went up to HSI yesterday to have another heartworm treatment and they kept him overnight to give him another shot today.

There was a family in intake that was bringing their old, sick lab in to be euthanized. The whole family was in tears as the vet tech took the doggie. I cried on my way to the car. The old boy was obviously well loved. My prayers are with that family tonight.

I had to run back to HSI around 4 to get Dex. As I parked out front, I recognized Rocky in the greet area with a big family. I just had to stop and talk to them. I chatted with them for about 20 minutes, and they decided to put an adoption hold on him. The gal who was adopting him is about 23, and was IN LOVE with the big lug. She will be moving tomorrow to a farm outside the city where she'll be training horses. I talked to her a lot about pit bulls, and it turns out she'd done a report on them in school. I couldn't have asked for a better life for this guy. He's a great dog with a lot of energy and love to give. He'll get to live on a big ol' farm with horses, pot bellied pigs, and a female dog to keep him company.

So tears of sadness, and joy.