February 2017 – Page 2 – Not Content to Crawl

Wookie’s First Grooming Experience

Posted onFebruary 17, 2017

I took Wookie to get groomed for the first time today. It was a little nerve-wracking to leave her with a stranger, but she came highly recommended by our vet, plus she works in the back room of the vet’s office, so she was close to home and to medical care should she have needed it for any reason. The groomer works by appointment only, so she was only there while being groomed and not sitting in a cage before or after which is nice.

Here’s a before photo of my little hot mess.

Here’s after her spa treatment.

The good – She looks so cute! The groomer gave her a bath, removed some mats from her back legs (she had to shave a few spots), removed the hair from inside her ears, trimmed the fur around her paws, shaved her around her private areas, clipped her nails, rounded off the nails with a dremel, cleaned around her eyes, trimmed the fur around her eyes, and brushed her out.

The bad – All total it cost $60.95. The base shampoo is $35, but it was $5 extra for the de-matting, another $5 extra for rounding her nails, plus I purchased a brush for $8, and then I gave the groomer a 15% tip. Ouch! I plan to keep up with her brushing moving forward to drive that price down as I don’t want to be spending too much every 6 weeks. Even though her fur has grown uneven we agreed to leave it alone because the groomer said that fluffy puppy fur is going to disappear in a couple of months anyway and if she trimmed it that would just accelerate the process.

The ugly – Wookie nipped the groomer at least twice when she was brushing her face. I’m not sure if she broke skin or not, but the groomer said she really hates the comb! I know all about that because she goes nutty at home when I bring out the comb, so I need to be better about desensitizing her to it.

Overall I think it was a good first step for her, although the little stinker peed on the carpet twice since getting home. I think them shaving her private area made it feel uncomfortable. She only seems to forget her potty pad training after something big like a vet visit. The last time was when she got her rabies shot.

Posted onFebruary 13, 2017

After my doctor visit Friday (2/10), I did a little shopping. One of my stops included Party City where I snagged this cute bunny cutout for 99 cents and this St. Patrick’s Day sign for $1.99. Both are for the front door.

I wanted to get a nicer Easter sign but they all had glitter on them which looks nice at first but makes a mess in the storage bins, not to mention eventually wears off.

I made a few other stops to grab some stuff for Joe for Valentine’s Day as well.

Friday night we watched Neighbors 2 which I thought was better than the first one.

Saturday morning we went to the arboretum for their Chocolate Expo and spent about $30 on goodies.

1st photo: jalapeÃ±o chocolate covered Slim Jims, a mint Oreo, cherry bombs, pretzels, chocolate covered Bullseyes.

2nd photo: dark chocolate toffee and an oversized turtle.

We tried everything so far except the pretzels and the turtle. The toffee is always good, the bullseyes were just ok, the mint Oreo was awesome, as were the Slim Jims. I think Joe really liked the cherry bombs too but I didn’t just because I’m not a fan of twizzlers.

We stopped at Chipotle for lunch and then went home to pick up Wookie to take her to Petsmart for their special Puppy Love event. She met some dogs and people and seemed to react better than last time. She also got some free treats!

In addition, I bought her an Easter toy. I love that the free Greenie’s she got are worth $10! We won’t be giving those to her until she’s 6 months old, however.

We signed her up for their 6-week puppy training course which starts next Saturday. I think she’s going pretty great with her training overall, but she could definitely use more socialization and it will be interesting to learn what we are and aren’t doing right with her too.

Sunday we did some grocery shopping super early in the morning. I couldn’t sleep so we found ourselves at Meijer just after 7 am.

We went to an 11 am showing of The LEGO Batman Movie which was, as expected, awesome! I can’t get enough of how cute and clever the LEGO movies are, and even though I’m not into the series, after seeing the preview I’m really looking forward to The LEGO NINJAGO Movie as well.

We made a stop at home to feed Wookie and then went to Beef Shack for lunch and then to Fermilab for their open house. However, once we got there and learned it was just science experiments set up for kids in this one building we’ve already visited before, we left. I thought we would be able to see the offices/labs in Wilson Hall so that was disappointing. I think it was a bit misleading to call it a open house vs a special event.

We wrapped up the weekend by watching The Grammys. I don’t know what the deal was with Beyonce but I couldn’t stand her so-called performance. She acts as if she’s the only woman who has ever been pregnant. It just reeked of self importance and it made me look away. I’ve never been a huge fan but she’s really rubbing me the wrong way lately. In contrast, I did like Lady Gaga performing with Metallica even if James’ mic wasn’t working. My favorite performance, however, was the tribute to the Bee Gees. Growing up my parents had a record player and a limited number of albums, one of them being Saturday Night Fever. We listened to it a lot so along with Creedence Clearwater Rival and the Carpenters, so the Bee Gees hold a special place in my heart even though I don’t really listen to their music very often.

I Love Our New Primary Care Doctor

Posted onFebruary 13, 2017

Friday I had an appointment with my new primary care physician. We’ve wanted to switch doctors for awhile but the one we’ve had for well over a decade had convenient hours and always accepted our insurance. Until last year when Blue Cross Blue Shield dropped her. When I called her office and spoke to her husband, the office manager, he explained it was because she wasn’t board certified but according to him that wasn’t necessary back when she started her practice. I don’t know whether or not that is true, but we chose a new primary care from a list of names but never actually saw her because Joe got a job and we switched insurance companies again.

Now we have Aetna, and while I’m pretty sure our old primary care is in their system, I felt it was a perfect excuse to leave without her knowing it’s because we’re tired of dealing with her husband. He’s technically friendly but comes off pretty gruff, particularly over the phone. I always feel like he’s trying to rush me off the phone which really sucked the last two times he screwed up and caused me insurance headaches. Those mistakes alone were enough to prompt my desire to leave, but his attitude (aka assigning blame to everyone but himself) really cemented it.

My friend had told me about how much she loved her primary care and it turns out he’s covered by our new insurance so a couple of weeks ago I scheduled an appointment. Not only is his office less than ten minutes away (opposed to 20+ since our old doctor was closer to where we used to live before we got the townhome), but the building is new and modern. Everyone there is super nice and friendly too.

I gave Dr. Nick, as I’m going to call him, a typed-up document going over my current health concerns along with a list of on-going issues, conditions I’ve been diagnosed with, conditions that have been ruled out via testing, the vitamins I take, etc. He really took it all in and put together a plan of action moving forward. This is in stark contrast to former doctor who would just keep sending me to specialists. I could tell after our first meeting that Dr. Nick not only cares about me but is very intelligent too. Everything he said made perfect sense. I really really like him and am hopeful that some of the crap I’ve been dealing with for years without answers might actually be addressed at last.

Even better? Since it was our first visit it was coded as an annual exam and I didn’t have to pay a cent. Woo!

Now I just need to get my old records from former doctor and it’s goodbye forever!

Dryer

Posted onFebruary 10, 2017

I’m not sure whether I ever wrote about the issues we’ve had with our dryer for over a year. We actually attempted to replace it last year but the one we purchased from Menards was broken. Then the replacement model was dented so we gave up and requested a refund. I didn’t care for the way the back of it was designed anyway since it stuck out more in the room which is narrow enough as it is.

Since then the dryer would heat up sporadically. It got to the point recently that most of the time it wouldn’t heat up at all which meant the clothes would tumble dry for hours. Joe decided to take a chance and order a part that might be the issue and since installing it last weekend everything has worked flawlessly. To say I’m relieved is an understatement – it was frustrating how long a single load of laundry would take to dry, not to mention how high our electric bill was from running it so much. Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. The kicker? That part was less than $20.

Patio Door

Posted onFebruary 6, 2017

We’ve been discussing replacing our patio door and even had a couple of window places out to the house for a quote but their prices were ridiculous. I’m not paying $3500+.

We cancelled a couple of quotes because we were done with all the bullshit and sitting through presentations only to be quoted a price way higher than what we want to spend. One guy absolutely refused to give us a price without a presentation so we decided to forgo the whole process.

We went to Menards on Sunday and they said a vinyl version (made by Jeld-Wen no less) of our same door would be $1000. Now we just have to figure out whether to pay someone to install it or have Joe do it himself. Somehow I doubt the doors these companies were trying to sell us are 2-4x better than what Menards sells. Maybe they are a little nicer but I think they just mark up the price and/or charge a ton for labor. The whole thing is a ripoff if you ask me.