The Costume Dilemma

We have ALWAYS dressed our dogs for Halloween. If I (still) wasn't having computer problems, I would scan each and every picture for you. But for now, you will just have to take my word for it.
Here are a few pictures of previous Halloweens' in our house.

This is Moose, our Rottweiler/Shepard mix, dressed a "Super Dog", Halloween 2000. He passed away last November. He was only 6-years old when bone cancer took him from us. We miss him terribly.
Poor Mr. Moose would hide when he saw me coming with a costume for him.


Here is my sweet Molly as a "Killer Bee", Halloween 2002. She will wear ANYTHING if I just bribe her a piece of cheese.


This is both Moose and Molly as "Killer Bee's" Halloween 2002.


This is Moose and Molly as "Hot Dogs" last year, Halloween 2006.
Moose died just 2-weeks later.

Herein lies my dilemma.
I have not shopped for doggie costumes this year.
And Rocco deserves a doggie costume.
So is putting Rocco in Moose's old hot dog costume a terrible thing? Will seeing him in that costume make me too emotional? Or will it make me realize that even though Rocco has big shoes to fill, he's slowly getting there?
Because the day before Halloween, it's either the hot dog costume or nothing.
Unless we wrap him in his favorite material, toilet paper, and dress him as a mummy.
I meant that as a joke, but it could be do-able.....

Sleep Deprivation

My husband created a monster. Just in time for Halloween! (I crack myself up sometimes).
Seriously, this is our problem.
Rocco gets baby gated into the kitchen when we have to leave the house. And we all know the reason....ROCCO CANNOT BE TRUSTED.
Rocco also used to be baby-gated into the kitchen when we slept. But my husband, the old softie, let Rocco sleep with us one night.
And from that moment on our sleep dynamic changed forever.
Because the next night, when we tried to put him the kitchen, he cried and whined and whimpered until at 3am we could not stand it anymore and we let him back on the bed.
Big mistake, because I have not had a decent might of sleep since then.
Rocco wants to sleep ON me. Let me tell you that a 100-lb dog laying across your legs or your arm certainly cuts off one's circulation.
Or he nudges my hand. ALL NIGHT. As if petting him until the wee hours of the morning is my top priority.
Did I mention that he hogs the bed? He actually lays next to the wall, then stretches out his legs against the wall, pushing my husband onto my side, thus pushing me to, well, the remaining 8-inches of the bed.
So I'm not sleeping well.
Which is why I am updating this blog at 5am.
Good for you readers....bad for my sanity.

Sunday Night

Still not able to insert new pictures, but tonight I have an opportunity to use an old one.
This is what I saw all night as I tried to watch "Desperate Housewives" and "Brothers and Sisters".

If someone could fill me in on what I missed, I would appreciate it.

Life is good

I just got home. It's 12:45am, and Rocco is sound asleep on the bed with my husband. Rocco looks so peaceful and majestic. He truly is a breathtaking dog.
Well, when he's not awake and eating paper towels and socks and down comforters and crazy glue.....
But right now, at this very moment, watching him sleep is the sweet end to a crazy day.

Today's Adventure

We live in a brick bungalow that was built in 1929. We are lucky enough to have 10-ft ceilings throughout our house.
Today, I noticed there were dust bunnies on the ceiling.
Yep, on that 10-ft high ceiling.
I walked to the dollar store and bought a broom that seriously cost $1! Yipee.
So I was walking through the house with the broom over my head, swatting down the dust bunnies. I was moving along at a good pace, room to room, corner to corner.
That is until Rocco noticed what I was doing.
Did I mention that Rocco attacks the broom when I am sweeping the floor?
And apparently he attacks the broom when I am trying to sweep the ceiling as well.
I would sweep the broom across the ceiling, and Rocco was jumping on his hind legs like he had springs on his feet, growling and snarling the entire time.
At the broom.
Its a wonder I can get anything done around here.

The glue that holds this family together

Yesterday I tried to get into the top drawer of our kitchen island and found that there was so much junk in there that I literally could not pry the drawer open. So I pulled the drawer out and dumped the entire contents onto the dining room table and started the "throwing out" process. When you live with a husband that is a pack rat, you must understand that the purging process MUST go undetected. If my husband sees something in the garbage, he will pull the item out and ask "Why is my favorite t-shirt (with paint splatters and holes that he has not technically fit into since 1987) in the garbage"?
Now in all fairness, he labels me a pack-rat as well. But he has no idea how to update this blog, so I can write whatever I damn well please, and he can't do anything about it.
HONEY, YOUR ARE THE PACK RAT!!!!!
So yesterday I am tossing items from that drawer willy-nilly into the garbage. Batteries, old pens, stickers and labels and twist ties, old phone books...you get the picture. I am hoping that my husband won't really catch on to the quantity of (un-needed) items that were tossed. I thought that I had gotten away with it. SCORE!
Later that evening, Rocco climbs onto my husbands lap and my husband rubs Rocco's face, and says "What's on his face? It feels like dried glue".
Dried glue?
Yep, our Rocco got into the garbage and managed to chew open the crazy glue that I could not open. We found the remainder of the glue bottle stuck to my husbands Chicago Bears throw rug on the back porch.
So Rocco has a crusty face, the rug has crazy glue bottle stuck to it, and I was in trouble for throwing out "perfectly good items".
At least I can open the drawer now.

Today....

My sister stopped by and in the 15-minutes that she was here, Rocco ate a corner of a hallway rug, emptied the bathroom garbage one kleenex at a time, and jumped up onto the dining room table, spilling my sisters' can of Pepsi all over the pile of bills that I was working on.
He was very, very troublesome today while my head was turned.
As I sit here typing, he just walked by carrying a People magazine in his mouth.
Lord help me today. I need some super-duper-puppy-patience.

Sorry for not updating

I am having computer issues, and can't attach any new pictures to the blog.
And truthfully, it's no fun NOT to attach any Rocco pictures, because in Rocco's case, a picture truly is worth a thousand words.
Rocco has the best guilty face, and trying to describe it just does not do the scenario justice.
Hopefully, the computer issues will be rectified shortly.

Today's Update

I lost my job a few weeks ago. It was completely unexpected. Then a few days later, my mom and niece were in a car accident. Then a week after that my mom was in the hospital. So the past 3-weeks have been crazy and hectic, filled with family commitments.
This week is the first week that I have spent job hunting. I spend hours at the computer each day, looking for a job, faxing and emailing my resume, and making follow up calls.
Oh, and refereeing Molly and Rocco.
These two are ecstatic that I am home. They run around the house everyday like two lunatics, fighting over the same slimy toy, then dropping said slimy toy into my lap as I sit at the computer, hoping that I will toss it to them. Later, Rocco hides under the dining room table and attacks a minding-her-own-business Molly, stealing the toy right out of her mouth. Then Molly cries and squeals like she is being tortured, until I walk over and take the toy from Rocco and give it back to her.
This happens OVER and OVER.
Unless of course a neighbor happens to walk by with their dog. Then my two bullies-of-the-block become united as one, barking furiously at the intruders walking past the house. Oh, I mean Rocco and Molly's house.
After the sidewalk trespasser is out of view, they go back to their doggie sibling rivalry, fighting over the toy-of-the-day. Not to be confused with the toy of yesterday. Or the day before.
These dogs are exhausting and I would not trade a minute of my time home with them.
Because after they tire of playing, they sit here at my feet as I type, picking up their heads every so often to check on me before they fall back into their peaceful doggie slumber.
There is no place that I would rather be.

The Big Dog Store

My husband and I went to an outlet mall today, and ventured into a Big Dog store. If you have not been to one or seen their website and you are a big dog lover, than please check out here their web address.
www.bigdogs.com
We must have been there for an hour, laughing out loud at the great graphic t-shirts. We picked out a few items (OK-more than a few) and as we were checking out, we actually bought some dog toy for our own big dogs.
This is what we picked out for Rocco.

The tag actually said WORLD'S TOUGHEST STUFFED DOG TOY.
Yeah, we thought that was hilarious, too.
We thought it was so amusing that we actually timed how long it took Rocco to destroy this toy.
Today's toy destruction time?
16-minutes until he had a hole chewed in it and all the stuffing pulled out.
The world's toughest dog toy manufacturer has not met Rocco.