Author: Suz

Smoking Dogs With Potential Gambling Probs & We’ve Finally Contained Ours

A few weeks ago the Coach and I along with two friends went to the East Coast, to see a comedian at the Seminole Hard Rock Indian Casino, so we booked an overpriced hotel room and stayed the night. We had an amazing dinner prior to the show, and since it was Saturday night, the casino portion of the hotel was jam packed.

What blew my mind more than seeing all the human kibbles & bits butts & underboob (who goes from the pool to roulette without a wardrobe change?) all over the place, and more than the amount of people smoking inside, was the amount of DOGS in the casino. We saw an entire family of French Bulldogs: Mom, Dad and three babies in a dog stroller; apparently they don’t care about the babies getting second hand smoke.

There was a man who took his TWO GREAT DANES into the comedy show and then we saw the three of them the next morning having breakfast at the food court. You can’t tell me those are Emotional Support dogs. You just can’t.

WHAT IS IT WITH PEOPLE AND THEIR DOGS? I mean, I am bonafide loony toons over my critters, but people have lost their minds and bring them everywhere.

A few years ago, my girlfriend Dawn stated to me: I blame this on Petsmart; they encouraged people to bring their dogs shopping and now people just can’t stop. She’s not wrong.

I see them at the grocery store and Target. I remember when it used to be just little foo-foo dogs, but recently I saw a doberman in Homegoods; she was perusing the candle aisle. This was not a ‘service’ dog, which of course people are just abusing. You know, my two Frenchies? Well if you see anyone with one of those and claims them as Therapy Dogs, those people are beyond help.

Speaking of my little turds. I’m not sure that I’ve complained about it here, but I have in real life: Our yard is too big. I know, again with the champagne problems Suz?

I was forever losing the dogs in the yard. *My goal was to keep them in the back portion of our property, but they always wanted to go to the front area. Biscuit is slim enough to walk through our front gate and has done so if a dog/bunny/cat is in the vicinity. It stresses me out. We’ve used the electric fence too, but it’s not always reliable.

About three months ago, the Coach and I decided to lessen the Frenchie Yard and fence in part of our back yard and as of just this last week, we now have a fence within a fence! My life is exponentially easier now!

*One small part of the issue with the girls in the front yard. About seven months ago, I arrived home from my evening workout. Coach is in the driveway, and four of the neighbors grandkids are in our yard playing with the dogs. I was all WHAT IS THIS? Turns out, my sweet husband told the kids that if they see us outside with the dogs, that they can jump the fence and play with the pups. How often do you think I was out there with the dogs for a quick pee break or to fill my bird feeders and I had a handful of kids jumping the fence for a Play Date? I started to play the lead in The Fugitive in my own yard, avoiding the kids seeing us. I know. I’m horrible, but I don’t always have forty-five minutes on a whim for them to play.

This is the back portion before the new fence railing:

And this morning: (excuse the bright sunlight, because Florida)

We’re thrilled! They still have too much space, a quarter of an acre at least, but this was the best layout with our house and our current property line fencing. Now I can take my eyes off them and not worry. I still stalk them after the sun goes down because we do have predators and predators don’t care about fences.

Bonus: the sweet kids next door can’t even see this part of our back yard.

I know, I’m Still Terrible!

One of our next ‘to do’s is to paint the current white railing fence across the front to match the new bronze colored fencing, which matches our updated gutters and Bahama shutters as of 2022.

Are you also seeing dogs everywhere? Does it seem weird to you, or is that just a Suzanne thing?

Wishing you a day where you can contain your loved critters, but not your JOY!

XOXO

The Traumatic Thing That Happened, Twins Run In Our Family And The Sitter Strikes Again

Back to our recent trip to Georgia a few weeks ago…

Here is a serene video of one area of the creek that runs through our property and it was taken about twenty five minutes before the almost life altering moment that I’d hinted at last week.

We had a full tour of the property via the UTV with D’Anne, Jana, Suz, Coach, Peanut and Biscuit. (BTW, we have special harnesses and straps to keep the girls safe in the UTV, the Frenchies, not my friends.)

Just Call her The Anchor

We ended the tour at the pond which has filled up nicely. A few months ago Coach had a ton of fish (12,000) brought into the pond from Alabama. There is even a feeder on a timer; it didn’t take long for the birds and raccoons to know when noon rolls around!

Coach sitting on the spillover, still in progress

Anyhoo, to the someone almost died part. The dogs were very interested in the Canada geese, and they were walking along the water line trying to get as close as possible with no luck.

Peanut then went to the spillover poking around and just walked off into the water, as if she were Jesus. I didn’t see her fall in, but my attention was grabbed as Coach said something calmly like ‘hold on, I’m gonna get you’ and he reached down for her, he was able to grab her in one swoop, but that girl was sinking fast. She came out, coughed a bit, shook the pond water off of her and looked at us like: What the hell just happened?

Coach: her eyes were huge, her little legs were moving, but she was sinking fast; that dog would make a great anchor.

My heart just about burst out of my chest and in that same moment I didn’t see Biscuit and I started screaming for her, thinking that everyone would soon disappear into the pond; luckily Biscuit was right behind me, wondering why I was losing my mind. My heart still pounds thinking about it all.

TWINNING

One morning, my Uncle Jim came over as he and Coach were going over to the property to check on things. I giggled when Coach came out of the bedroom and the two of them were in their respective matching Double L uniforms for the day!

Two of the best men you could ever encounter.

I Could Sit On That

I’ve shared before how Biscuit loves to sit on top of her sister; it happens daily. But what you might not know, is she doesn’t just prefer to sit on other dogs, she is an equal sitting opportunist and includes Humans as her seating spot. Occasionally, she will climb in our bed and splay herself on my noggin. It’s great. No really, it’s so comfortable for me. 🫣

This past weekend, she climbed the Coach and used the Coach as her perch.

We have the weirdest, non swimming dogs. Actually Biscuit could probably swim because she has actual legs and is fairly lean. Poor Peanut is built like a legless tank.

Has anyone ever had a dog that couldn’t swim? Never in my life did I imagine a dog who couldn’t….I mean, the type of swimming I do is called a Doggie Paddle!

XOXO

The Writing Is On The Wall (and the toilet and the door)

I know I shouldn’t complain about my home, because I’m fortunate to have a safe place to land each day. But for the love of everything, it’s overly needy.

It’s usually the electric gate, the air-conditioning, the water or the plumbing. Always with the plumbing.

Since we have people coming and going and my husband isn’t always so focused on things that aren’t functioning properly, I add a handy dandy little note. so we don’t get caught in a dry pickle. We are on a well system and get our water via a reverse osmosis tank; if you let the water run and run, the tank will empty and we will have zero water. none. zip. zilch.

This makes for a cranky Suz, although I don’t need the finest things in life, I’m a much better person with running water.

Our current Sign Situation

Bathroom One: I love threatening people.

I used to have great handwriting, but as I’ve gotten older (lazier) it’s not as neat, plus I’m guessing I was in Frustration Mode when writing these notes.

Bathroom Two: I’m tempted to change sticks to sucks.

Main door to the lanai won’t open for no apparent reason: I put that note for our 23 year old dog sitter when she stayed here last weekend. I knew she would get it.

Bathroom Three: Some of you might recall this sign and post from 2021 when our painter Jeff Spicolli Super Stoner, didn’t want to read this sign all the way through because he thought I was sharing GOSPEL information and not toilet information.

Spicolli felt terrible about us being without water for 13 hours after that incident, so he did a nice repair the next day. Sadly, that toilet is again running. I’ve not added a sign, I’ve just closed the door and not let anyone in there.

I don’t want to jinx it, but our toilet in the master bathroom is in perfect working order.

We also have two sinks (kitchen & guest bath) with the absolute worst water pressure in the twenty first century. Add in that in our master bathroom, I had to turn off the hot water to our sinks because my side would continually drip, even after a plumber looked at it twice. *sigh*

I have new plumbers, the ones who installed our tankless water heaters and they will be out next week to address ALL of the things. Well, not the door. Not sure when the Coach will be able to tackle that one.

Wish me luck!

Anyone else leave little notes around your house regarding the broken stuff so it doesn’t get worse?

XO

Fainting Goats, Flowers Galore, Sprayed Wine, Laughter Even More Galore

My amazing friend D’Anne, along with her sister Jana and I had been trying to plan a girls’ getaway trip for quite a while, but we could not come up with anything, which seems unimaginable.

Finally I said: We have dates booked for Georgia, why don’t you come spend some time with us there? It took them no time to book a flight and I felt like I had genius status for at least a minute.

The Coach and I were there for a few days before the girls arrived, but I didn’t make big plans for their visit as we tend to just roll with ‘how we feel’ and go from there.

In the four and a half days they were there, we visited Gibbs Gardens. (We have a thing for gardens, and this one is always evolving with the seasons)

Can you believe the size of this Snowball Verbena?

We also had a windy good time at a Winery, enjoyed an afternoon in Dahlonega, filled some garden bowls on our deck with flowers, worked on a puzzle, ate many meals, drank a bit ok, a lot of wine, *sampled Georgia moonshine right from our freezer, talked a LOT about everything under the sun, enjoyed the fire pit on a very dark night, ogled the starry sky, laughed more than a human probably should and had a nice long *adventurous tour of Double L Ranch on the UTV. Oh, and of course, D’anne had little gifts for me each morning, just like last time, as only a lunatic friend would.

My innovative way to de-callus my tootsies–FIRE

Say It Don’t Spray It.

I have to write this down, really for my own posterity. One evening we were enjoying a lovey dinner at a nearby restaurant; the weather was perfect, so we were seated on a patio. Our dinner was finished and we were just drinking wine and talking. I wanted a pic of D and Jana; they obliged with their lovely smiles, then they decided to make Fish Faces. We giggled, I showed them the result of the fish pic, right at the same time as D took a big sip of Cabernet. Well, hells bells, she laughed so hard at seeing the pic that she sprayed her wine across the table onto Coach and I. Well, mostly our finished dinner plates and some of Coach’s shirt. This of course, made us ALL laugh even more! You couldn’t have planned a spray this big!

D was beside herself, but we could not stop laughing.

Me: I’ve probably been sprayed by worse people and worse things!

A gift for the hostess. 🙂

All The Goats Faint

The Fainting Goat Winery is only twenty five minutes from our house and I can’t believe it took me this long to visit. The views coming from (and going to) are breathtaking. We had to pull over to take a pic.

It was crazy windy the day we visited the winery, but still, like loons we wanted to sit outside for the views. We had a little charcuterie and our small glasses of ‘tastes’ and every once in a while a gust of wind would pick up and we would all put our arms out to hold our glasses and the food/napkins/etc. It was hilarious. We thought about going back inside, but the thought of picking up all our glasses and snacks seemed like too much work.

I was so distracted by the wind, that I didn’t get to ride see the fainting goats up close. In hindsight, had we ordered a REGULAR sized wine portion, there wouldn’t have been a worry.

The wine, even thought it was from Georgia and not New Zealand, earned my snobby seal of approval.

Did you even visit a winery if you don’t bring home a few bottles?

We had such a great visit and I hope they return again; so far D has seen Fall and Spring at our place, but she’s not seen summer or winter yet!

*We had a bit of trauma/drama while visiting the Double L. I’ll share that story next time.

So, who wants to visit and join me for a tour of the winery, the gardens or just sample some local moonshine and call it a day?

(personally, I don’t do moonshine, but I don’t judge those who partake)

XOXO