Category Archives: Pets and Animals

Herein Lies Schnoodle

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We have had Schnoodle for a long time, since we bought our house ~10years ago.  Schnoodle moved with Cassie from Nunn at my request.  She was such a cool dog and we had a good link from the first time we met.  In fact she wouldn’t ever let me stop petting her and always wanted more attention.  I knew she would be a good dog, and she always was.

She made friends wherever she went, and with whomever had food..lol.


Schnoodle and her friend Nikki at Christmas time

She always just fit in with us.  She could camouflage herself  like a pile of black clothes when needed and didn’t hardly ever complain about anything.  She was happy to be with us and was easily trainable by those with hot dogs.


Schnoodle in the Snow

We always tried to treat her like one of the family.  When she was younger we would take her with us everywhere.   To the store, to friends houses and she would even dress up for Halloween! We thought (and still think) she was the coolest dog ever.

Schnoodle and Cassie as Rabbits

She was already pretty old when she moved in with us and she lived a long life.  We think she was born sometime around 1997.  Cassie’s family got her as a pound puppy so some of her history is unknown.   It’s possible that she was saved from certain doom by Charlotte and the Davis family.   Justin wanted a chiwawa but got a Schnoodle instead, which I am extremely grateful about!

Over the years she started to slip further and further from us.  She used to sleep with us on the bed at our feet.  Then she started to not be able to jump up on the bed.  So she started to sleep on a pillow on the floor.  She liked that quite a bit as she was always looking for the softest places to sleep.  Eventually she moved out to the living room and slept on an old leather couch we had.  Then when she lost her eyesight and hearing she was sleeping in the kitchen right next to her food and water.   It was in these later years that she passed away after wanting to be let outside just as she had normally done.  I didn’t think there was anything unusual but went out to check on her and found that she had passed away peacefully.


Schnoodle’s Grave Marker

I learned a lot from Schnoodle about living and old age.  Even in her old age without being able to see or hear, she seemed pretty content to still be hanging out enjoying her routine of food, sleep and going outside.  I also am reminded that life, no matter how long, is too short.

She will be missed and unfortunately for other dogs will be always used as a comparison to all dogs.  I am sure we will always say things like, “Well Schnoodle wouldn’t have ever done that, she was patient”.  You will be missed Schnood and I hope you are just continuing on your journey.

Update On Me: I have my memory back and am just in a stage where I am going to try to figure out what is wrong and how to best treat it.  I have some time off work so that we can focus on it which is nice.  This is a big event for Cassie and I and I appreciate hearing from my friends and family.  It is a reminder that I’ve had a really good life and I don’t see that changing.  Just another step, another lesson and another thing to experience on my own journey.

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Cold November Updates

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We took off about a week from blogging! I think that may be the new record! Anyhow, we have been staying busy, but we also caught some sort of weird bug that put us out for a while. Britton and I both had a fever of about 102 for two or three days in a row. Britton had it first and shared it with me (thanks honey 🙂 ) We had headache, body aches and the general fatigue made it so that neither of us wanted to do much more than sleep and watch movies. (On the positive side, I’ve lost another 4 lbs thanks to no appetite!)

We also got hit with another pretty fast snowstorm and cold weather in general that also made us just want to stay inside and do nothing interesting.


Brrr

We do still continue on with some of our goals to clean out the house and prepare to move. We gave our nice big extra HD TV that had been in the basement guest bedroom to Britton’s sister and we are preparing to install a new sink in one of the bathrooms because the enamel coating has worn off and it is starting to leak a little.

We’ve also looked into the details of taking Kitty with us to Puerto Rico and found out that it will cost $125 (one way) to take him with in the airplane cabin. He requires a really small kennel that can go under the seat, so we will will have to find one. A hard shelled kennel must measure no more than 17.5″ long, 12″ wide and 7.5″ high (doesn’t that seem super short?!). For a soft sided carrier it can be 18″ long, 11″ wide and 11″ high. Anyone know of an airline approved one? We also found out there is no vaccination or vet check requirements, which surprised us.

Another medical student is living with us for the month which has been fun. And we are looking forward to the holidays. This cold weather has us thinking a LOT about PR.
That’s about it in terms of updates. Hope to post again soon!

 

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It’s Back (Snow That Is)

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These past two mornings we’ve awoken to a generous helping of snow covering the neighborhood. At least it has been warming up a little in the afternoons and the roads have been pretty clear, but still…October? At least it is quite pretty. Check out some of the snow scenes we captured.  I can appreciate it a little more now that I know this will be our last winter here.


Pink snowy morning glow out the back door


Snowy blue backyard later that day


Out the front window towards the sunrise. The peach tree is heavy with snow


Because Schnoodle is so old, we have to sometimes carry her into the house. Her fur gets all clumped with snow


We brought her in and she beached out on the towel

Back to scraping the cars again (at least I keep mine in the garage though!)

 

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Moving to Puerto Rico Checklist

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Lately Puerto Rico has really been in our mind. We are MORE THAN READY to move mentally/emotionally. So we have been thinking about getting ready to move physically. We wrote up all the things we will need to do in the next few months so that we can just up and move there. A lot of this is a general checklist for moving pretty much anywhere, but some of it is specific to moving to Rincon Puerto Rico.  After living somewhere for so long (Greeley) there are things we just don’t think about much.  We have lived here in our first home for 10 years.  Things like car titles, using up old stuff, medical and school transcripts/records , making sure we have Social Security cards, etc.  Also we don’t really have an “address” to ship stuff to, so that will be something to figure out.

For those of you who have already made the move to Puerto Rico (or elsewhere), are there any other things we should think about/take care of before we ship out?

  • Banks (change over address and ensure future bank cards are delivered to us)
  • Open new Bank Account inPuerto Rico
  • Cars (get titles together, sell)
  • Buy new car inPuerto Rico
  • Go thru all Stuff/Junk (to friends/family, charity, sell or toss). *Question: How much should we take with or replace?
  • Find new homes for the chickens
  • Get Kitty’s vet records and learn what it will take to bring him with us on the airplane
  • Get house cleaned professionally (carpet, bathrooms, kitchen, etc)
  • Put remaining properties under managment(2)
  • Host a going away party!
  • Put together all personal / professional records
  • Call insurance agents to cancel car insurance and change home policies to rental and update address
  • Sell assets we can’t manage from afar
  • Use up old stuff and don’t buy new stuff (Frozen food, cleaners, canned food, bathroom supplies, etc)
  • Look for boxes and pack up / label and have family ship to us when we get there
  • Buy airline tickets and line up rental car for appx 1 month while we look for a new car
  • Find new homes for our plants (coffee, banana, orchids)
  • Get tax documents together for 2012 filing
  • Update address with property tax assessor, 401k, IRA, etc
  • Setup things we need down there (we already have water and electric.  Mayyyybe internet?  Cell phone? )
  • Find new server / hosting for website and promote

We have been thinking about this a lot more lately as it appears we will be moving our date up.  We don’t have an exact new deadline but we figure we can take care of a lot of these things now in preparation.  Stay tuned for posts on many of the items in the above list!

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