Three Pete

I'm not the only member of the Bauhaushold to have a birthday this month.

Our fuzzy son turned three today. That might be drinking age in dog years, but that didn't stop him from acting like an excited human three year old when we gave him his present, that blue rope dog you see in the picture. I've never seen a dog who loves to get new toys as much as Pete does. I wish I took video of him getting his toy, but if you really want to see how he reacted, you can just look at this Christmas video from '09 (and get to see me topping 200 pounds after my first MC. Bonus!). That's pretty much his reaction to every new toy: dance and beg and dance and beg and then grab it and run back and forth through the house with it several times until he collapses in exhaustion and starts chewing it to death. I bet he could power a small town with the wind energy created by all that tail wagging.

Here he is in the "chewing it to death" new toy phase:

That is one happy birthday pup.

To alleviate all the angstiness around here lately...

Here's a pic of some cute animals being cute:

Putting the "Awwww!" in Awesome

A little dog in Australia refused to leave a litter of kittens trapped in a burning building. The Firepersons got them all out safely, but the dog had to be treated with oxygen, poor pup. Neat. And a little disheartening, because I'm pretty sure none of my pets would stick around to try to save ME, let alone each other.

Just try to turn off the five-year-old part of your brain when you read this story and watch the video. Doggie! Kitties! Doggie kisses!

Updateyness

I got busy last Friday and forgot to blog my new homepage at JMBauhaus.com. Content hasn't changed--it's still just a portal to my schizoid online personalities--but it's got a new design that I made all by myself, from scratch! It took forever to remember how to do some of this stuff, and I had to cheat and peek at other web sites' source code to see how some things were done. Oh, and I didn't design the background image myself; that came from a free blog banners site. So I guess I did have some help. Still, I'm mighty proud of how it turned out. In Firefox, at least. In IE, not so much, but even so: pretty!

My next project: this here blog. I bet you can't wait.

Also, I created a home for The Hero Factor on Livejournal, where I've decided to go ahead and post it in installments as I do the next draft (I still have to finish the first draft, though, so it'll be a little while yet). It'll be subscribers only, so if you don't have a Livejournal account or an Open ID, or don't want to get one, or do and just don't want to "friend" my novel, then you'll just have to wait for the eventual podcast version. I'm sure you're seething with bitter disappointment.

UPDATE: Sometimes it's a good idea to look back at what you posted last week before writing a new post. /UPDATE

Two sentences in this post are sarcasm. Can you guess which two?

In creative news that had absolutely nothing to do with me, my nephew and his wife's latest collaboration arrived safely into the world early this past Saturday morning, and she is a work of beauty. And adorableness.

Oh, and by the by, my little sister has a blog. Go say hi!

What we need now is an infusion of cute.

Baby polar bears: good for what ails you.

Wee little punk puppies!

"So what are you up to today, Jean?" some of you might be asking.

Making over my Etsy shop, if you must know, and updating it with my new Tiny Dog Threads. Because every tiny dog should have a hand-beaded Jolly Roger sweater, that's why.

Isn't that right, Fizzgigg?

Can you say "Awwwwwwwww"?

Yet another reason to wish I could be Neil Gaiman.

Et Cetera: Holiday Highlights

The construction crew was at it bright and early this morning, pounding their little hearts out. They're still at it, although at least for the time being they've moved down a little from the window outside my cube and the banging's slightly muffled. Thank God for small favors.

Welcome back, everybody. Hope you had a good weekend, long or otherwise.

Mine was spent, among other things, getting my dog checked out at the vet, looking at rental houses, and catching up on the remainder of the 2006-07 television season on the TiVo.

Fizzgigg went in for a teeth cleaning, but was found to have an infection, and was instead sent home with about two weeks' worth of antibiotics, and I was sent home feeling like a neglectful mother and complete dumbass for assuming his lethargy and weight loss were simply due to old age and not getting him checked out sooner. Since his medicine's kicked in he's been acting like his old self again, and I think he put about two pounds back on over the weekend. Let that be a lesson to us all: don't assume your pets are just old when they start going downhill. Get them checked out. It could be something fixable. [/PSA]

Husband and I checked out a couple of rental houses on Friday, and one of them appeared to have a lot of move-in potential. We couldn't see the inside because it was getting ready to undergo a paintjob, but from what we saw of the outside, we're definitely going to go back and view the interior once it's ready to show.

The other highlight of our weekend was a late night walk we took on Saturday, during which we got to watch an entire brood of baby foxes frolic around the empty lot across from our boarding house while their parents skulked and kept a watchful eye on us from the bushes. The sight could have given Cute Overload a run for its money. What I would have given to have a video camera with night vision, but alas, I didn't even have so much as my camera phone on me, so you'll have to take my word for it: SO CUTE!!!

Otherwise, I spent the weekend being as lazy as possible while still getting enough of my share of the household chores done to get us by another week, reading, and watching a lot of movies and TV, all of which I'll write up in detail later today. For now, I'm feeling quite refreshed from all the rest, and ready to take advantage of the muffled pounding to hunker down and get some work done.

A shot of pure, undistilled cuteness.

They're holding hands! OMGcute! *dies*

Keeyoot!

Matt just sent this pic of Fizzgigg, fresh from the groomer. Once I picked myself up after almost dying from the cuteness I had to share.

Skidboot

I'm a big weepy girl today, but nevertheless, be warned that this video made me cry all over my keyboard.

Itty bitty horsey!