Sansa the Cone Head: Part 2

It’s officially Christmas time! We hosted two Thanksgiving dinners, one with each of our families. We’re thankful to have them all in our lives! We even got to FaceTime with my in-laws, who are currently in CA, being warm and making me jealous 🙄. I supplied craft materials for all the kids to make a Thanksgiving picture frame and pulled out my Instax camera that Philip got me for Christmas two years ago and I never remember I have. I’m going to check and see what brand of batteries is in that thing because they’ve never been changed and they are still good!

Another thing I’m thankful for is Sansa gets her staples out tomorrow. We are on cone #2 now and I/she can’t wait for it to come off. The first cone made it about 5 days before she cracked it. A combination of her running into every wall she came near and the back of my leg all the time, and Sophie trying to rip it off her head created the first crack completely across the width of it, along the velcro closure. I patched it with some pretty pink duct tape and put it back on her. That lasted for about another two days before the front edge cracked and I patched it with some clear packing tape so that it didn’t block her vision. These both happened Friday-Sunday so by Monday she needed a new one. She also needed a couple more staples because sometime over the course of the weekend two popped out. I called to schedule an appointment and they told me she would probably be fine (the staples were supposed to come out this past Friday) but I could bring her up if I wanted. I wanted. The wound looked swollen and weepy. I put her in my Jeep and when I pulled onto the highway, her head came forward between my front seats and did the cone the rest of the way in. By the time we arrived it was completely cracked and just barely hanging on 😂. She got a new cone, some more antibiotic, two new staples, and an extended removal date. The vet tech told me to keep her as calm as possible because a knot (she used a proper word for it that I don’t remember) had formed behind her sutures and we didn’t want them coming out. Right, okay. I get it but I also wonder if she has dogs. I asked if they were going to send her home with a sedative because calm isn’t really their thing. She told me to give her Benadryl. Well, Sansa isn’t really the problem in all this. Sophie on the other hand….She’s the one who needs tranquilized for the next week or so. I thought about getting a cone for her, just to even the playing field. She is the instigator always. She gets Sansa worked up and she even bites her staples. She’s a pain in the ass but I love her. We yell at them every time they get rowdy and try to intervene and play calmly with them but that’s not always easy. Especially when you’re trying to get something done, like school work. You have to constantly watch them when they get out to pee also because Soph seems to lose her listening ears as soon as the cold air hits her face. I’ve gone outside into the yard in my socks twice to break them up 😡. 

First “fix”

Second “fix”

I snapped this pic right before we went into the vet’s office. Total destruction. 

The cone took some getting used to 😂😂😂

Poor girl didn’t know where to put her foot. 

It didn’t take long before she got the hang of it though. 

However, Soph is not enjoying Sansa being unable to run and play with her. She gets bored. 

And when she’s been yelled at enough times for bothering Sansa, she’ll decide to bother someone else. This was her while I was trying to do my homework. 

Practicing yoga: Downward Dog

Being a flamingo. 

Perfecting her Corpse pose. Marsha, she may have outmastered you, just sayin 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sansa enjoying a rare moment of freedom from her cone while Mom cleans it. That thing gets nasty!

I know Sansa will be excited to get her cone off but she has managed to find it useful. For example, she can hold her toys in it. However, she’ll be glad she won’t get stuck in the bathroom anymore. Sansa isn’t a barky dog (unless there’s someone outside. Or if there’s not someone outside but she thinks there’s something outside 🙄) so you know she needs something when she barks. The first time she got stuck we were in bed and heard her whining. I think she had followed Philip in and then didn’t make it out. Our bathroom is small and she has to check to see if you’ve emptied the toilet paper roll anytime someone goes in. Or anyone someone doesn’t go in and she remembers she hasn’t checked in the last five minutes. Well the toilet is behind the door so she has to close it to check but then she can’t get her big head with that cone back out without someone helping her. I’m not even sure how many times that’s happened now. Too many, for sure. Another thing she *thinks* she can’t do is drink water when the bowl is on the ground 🙄. About three days in she spent the entire day whining, driving me crazy. I thought she wanted the biscuits that were on the counter. She doesn’t bark often but she can be demanding when it comes to bread products. I kept yelling at her to go lay down. When it started raining later that day she kept wanting out on the deck (going outside in the rain is totally not her thing) and then licked the water off the boards. I finally put her bowl of water outside and she drank out of it on the deck. However, when she came back in she wouldn’t drink unless one of us held it up to mouth level for her 🙄🙄🙄. So this has been ongoing since then. She’s a smart girl so I’m pretty sure this is a manipulation technique but it’s better than her being dehydrated and whining all day. Soph also thinks she needs to get in on that action so she always comes over to have a drink too when you’re holding it for Sansa. Sometimes, Sansa finishes and walks away and it will be a few seconds before I realize that I’m only holding it for Sophie and there’s no need and I put it down 🙄. 

Again, I’m so thankful her staples come out tomorrow (hopefully! As long as she didn’t do anymore damage) This has been an adventure that I hope to never have again!

Sansa working smarter, not harder. 

We went to see Kevin Hart on Friday night and the show was amazing. He had three openers, who are part of a group called the Plastic Cup Boyz (a lame name in my opinion but whatevs.) The third one may have been even better than Kevin Hart. I laughed until I cried at him. This is Kevin’s newest tour and none of the content has been aired yet so they told us no less than 56 times not to have your cellphone out. In fact, you couldn’t even have it turned on if it was out. If they caught you with your cellphone out and turned on, you were ejected from the show. We saw a couple people get escorted out. I gotta tell ya though, the cell phone police was a geriatric force and there were a lot of stairs. So they were vigilant in the beginning but I think climbing those stairs became too much and they slacked in the later parts of the show. They had glow stick necklaces that they twirled around in circles when they caught someone and this alerted security to come kick them out. That was super distracting and made me wanna throw something at them. We had terrible seats, like last row , top of the arena but we didn’t care. That just meant we could get out easier and didn’t have to wait on a million people. The traffic was backed up getting out of there. It was in Pittsburgh and I may prefer driving in NYC over there. The streets are confusing and people block the light so you can’t get out. However, it didn’t take nearly as long to get out of the city as it did when Lori and I went to the Taylor Swift concert in Columbus. This could be because we parked in a lot rather than a parking garage. I won’t make that mistake again if I can help it. 

The steps the geriatric cell phone police had to continually climb 😳

What’s left of a binky Kong Soph ate while we were in Pittsburgh. Don’t worry, she threw it all up on our bedroom floor at 7am the next morning 🙄. 

Soph supervising us putting together a cabinet in the basement. 

        Next weekend is the Christmas parade in town and then Sunday we are going to see A Christmas Story in Parkersburg. I’m getting in the Christmas spirit but I’m not ready to put our tree up just yet. This is Sophie’s first Christmas and I can already imagine what kind of damage she’s going to do to it. Ugh.  

Sansa: The Cone Head

My poor baby is a cone head for the next two weeks 😭😭😭.  We had a crazy day on Friday and I still don’t even know what happened for sure. I let the girls out to pee while I was busy putting laundry away. They came back in and Sansa went and laid on the couch and Sophie was just being Sophie, looking for a toy or something to terrorize. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until I walked into the kitchen and saw a trail of blood from the back door to the living room. I asked which one of them was bleeding but they didn’t offer me any help so I went to investigate and found a horrible gash on Sansa’s leg. Philip is working from home now so I texted him to come look at it and we agreed she needed to go to the vet right away for stitches. I called and they told me to bring her right up. She didn’t come tell me she was hurt, she jumped onto the couch (onto a blanket, thankfully) and off the couch when I told her we were going “bye byes,” jumped into my Jeep and then out again at the vet’s office. She wasn’t happy about the tech taking her into the back without me but I could hear her tail thumping while they were stitching her up. I asked if I could go ahead and pay before she came out because it’s easier without trying to wrangle a dog and while I was doing that, they brought her out without me knowing and she rammed right into my leg with her cone 😂😂. They told me she would play the pity game and pretend she can’t eat with it but yes, she can. Boy did she ever. When we got home, she bumped her way up the stairs inside and immediately sat by the door, I think waiting for me to “undress” her like we do after a walk. She stayed like that for 2 1/2 hours. I left for a while and she finally moved from the door when I came home. She bumped her way into the living room and onto the couch. She eventually moved to her bed later that night and then into ours. She wiggles so much when she walks it’s no wonder she runs into everything. I took her out several times on the leash so I knew if she pottied and she didn’t pee for the first 24 hours. I seriously wonder how connected a dog’s nose and their urge to pee is. She tried to sniff different spots but couldn’t quite get the cone in the right place and I wondered if that’s why she couldn’t go. She’s very selective about where she poops and pees. It’s an honor, really, if she decides to go in a certain spot 🤷🏻‍♀️👸🏻. She’s on an antibiotic and pain medicine, which makes her a little sleepy, which is good. The only problem is that Sophie is not on a pain medicine that makes her a little sleepy and she is still full speed. She tried tearing the cone off of Sansa’s head. She still picks at her and bites her legs, luckily not the hurt one. Not yet, anyway. She likes to ‘visit’ her in her cone😃. When I first brought Sansa home from the vet and let Soph out of her crate, she came into the kitchen and BARKED at Sansa because she was scared of her cone head. It was pretty hilarious actually. Sansa didn’t think so. They’re both adapting now though. Soph is leaving her alone a *little* bit more than normal and Sansa has started growling at her to tell her to piss off. She tries to play a little but one of us has to supervise because I don’t want to risk Soph biting her staples/stitches and making them bleed. 

****WARNING**** graphic pic ahead!

Before 🤮🤮🤮

After

One good thing about the cone is it’s an excellent umbrella. It was raining Friday night and Sansa didn’t get her head wet when we went outside to attempt to pee. It is also a Sophie shield when she’s eating so she can’t come and try to butt Sansa away from the food. She has started eating but not very much. She’ll eat anything you hand her but she’s not real keen on the idea of doing it herself. I would be concerned except for the fact that she has plenty of fat stores to last her for a while 😂. One not so great thing about it is it needs cleaned several times a day. She drools at the thought of cheese so if she even hears the cheese drawer open she starts salivating, which pools down her neck. I also dislike that she can’t scratch her ears so I do it for her if I notice her try. Anyway, it’s going to be a long two weeks for us but I know that’s it’s best she wears it. I won’t lie, I really wanted to take it off of her the first night when she wouldn’t eat dinner. However, I knew if I took it off, putting it back on was going to be a major problem. She’s a licker so I know she would instantly be messing with her wound, the exact reason the cone needs to stay on. She’s in good spirits though and only running into things about 50% of what she was so that’s a start! 🙂

Soph visiting Sansa in her cone ❤️

Cones don’t stop tug-o-war!

We did some Christmas shopping today and when we got home Sansa was the most excited I have ever seen her be in her life. No kidding. She was wiggling so hard and walked back and forth between us to greet us each several times, for several minutes. She tried to convince us to take her for a walk (she has a signal that she does with her nose and then goes to stand by the counter where we keep her walking “clothes” and treat bag) but we didn’t think she should go just yet. Her wound looks really good and seems to be healing well but we want her to stay off her leg as much as possible for these first few days at least. She and Soph played a bit and then we all played hide and seek. She crashed so hard into the doorway in the bathroom looking for one of us that her cone is now dented. This is day 3. I can’t imagine what it will look like at the end of two weeks 😳.

   While we were out we ate at Olive Garden. I was starving so the food was delicious but it’s always good. We ordered chicken Alfredo and the lasagna. I have a question. Are these two meals gendered? Can you guess which one each of us ordered from these two options? I ask because the food runner brought them out to us and very surely started to place the chicken Alfredo in front of me and said, “chicken Alfredo for you,” and I said, “that’s his,” and she said, “ok then, just kidding, it’s for you,” and gave it to Philip. Why did she assume that was mine? I like both dishes. I order the Alfredo often but I also love their lasagna. I want to know if lasagna is considered a “man’s meal.” If so, that’s ridiculous. But I need to know. Tell me your opinion in the comments. 👦 👧 

   I went to my friend, Chris’s, wine tasting party last night. That was a first for me and while I didn’t care for most of the wines (dry wine is gross. You can either agree or be wrong), I had a great time with great friends. The hostess taught us how to pair certain foods with specific wines. She wanted to show us how aerating wine makes it taste different but I hadn’t finished the unaerated sample when she came to pour me more and she told me to finish it. For those of you who know what my face looks like when I feel, well, any emotion really, I can’t imagine it was a good reaction. My step sister offered to finish it for me because she’s the best. I’m sure there are wine connoisseurs out there that think aerating wine changes the taste but cough syrup flavored wine just doesn’t get any better, aerated or not. #sorrynotsorry 

     Anyway, with all this excitement and a literature review that I keep thinking about but really am just procrastinating doing, I didn’t get much else done this week. Keep your fingers crossed for me that next week will be less eventful, or at least have less emergency visits 😉. Here are a few more pics of my goofs to send you away with. 

This is how I found her laying in front of the chair I was sitting in 😂

Soph totally NOT begging for food 🙄

Cuddling with mommy 

Sophie left her rope outside a couple of days ago. It got wet and then froze into a stick 😂. She doesnt seem to mind. 

Passion For Repurpose

 I started Christmas shopping yesterday…well, officially, since I went to an actual store. I bought stuff online a couple of times already. Anyway, this post isn’t about Christmas shopping (except to say that everyone should take a nice hard look at all the things we have and use that observation to think about what we “need” to buy. Does your kid really need a bazillion new toys? I doubt it. Give em a box, they’ll love it, I swear! 😉) but I wanted to share with you the super cool erasers I bought while I was out and that sparked my desire to write a Passion for Repurpose piece (insert fanfare music here! Duh duh duh duh!)

So a couple of weeks ago I decided I needed a solution to a ridiculous first world problem: my salt and pepper shakers kept falling over in the basket we keep on the table with napkins in it *GASP*. I know, it’s terrible. I wanted something to sit them in and the pepper filler container was the perfect fit. Now, the pepper wasn’t exactly empty…but that was okay because we had two pepper containers so I just dumped it in the second one. Good thing companies don’t ever fill their containers and give you your money’s worth 😂🙄. I will paint it at some point but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I started my Master’s program last week so I’m adjusting to school life again. 

This next repurpose is something I did a long time ago, like 2-3 years ago but I recently got them out and wanted to share with you all. I realize that most people probably don’t have quite the cookie cutter collection I have, and honestly, for the amount of times I make cookies in one year I should really purge them. But I won’t because these cookie cutters belonged to my Grandma, who had a matching set to the ones we had growing up that my brother took for his kids. So when you have a huge cookie cutter collection, you need storage solutions. The containers that dishwasher tabs come in are perfect for this task. You can leave them plain or fancy them up with some duct tape and a slightly crooked label. Normally I would fix it but I don’t see them enough to care. By the way, I realize I said fancy and duct tape in the same sentence. What can I say, I have high standards 🤷🏻‍♀️😉

Some of you may have seen my recent post on FB about now being a good time to stock up on sunscreen for next year (and my warning about how skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in young adults!). I bought several bottles and they sat in my bathroom in the way of my drawers for a couple of weeks until I finally got a bright idea about how to store them. I’ve been collecting Starbucks Been There series mugs for our travel destinations this year and they come in a nice box that’s sturdy. I decided to put them to good use storing my sunscreen. They fit perfectly behind my lotion and perfume bins in my bathroom 👍🏻

The next hack is one I’ve shown you before but it has now migrated out of the kitchen. Parmesan cheese lids fit perfectly on Mason jars and are great for well, lots of things. I use them at work for fine motor play for tots but they’re great for other things, too. I believe I showed you my rice storage before but they’re also great for candy and out of the kitchen, I saw this one on Pinterest: hot glue sticks! 

Also in the craft room, we have a tennis ball container for holding shower curtain hooks (yes, I realize most of you don’t have a collection of shower curtain hooks but maybe you should cuz I use them all the time..just sayin’!), and glass yogurt cups for miscellaneous supplies. The Yopliat Oui brand is what comes in glass jars. The yogurt is delicious and you get awesome jars for a buck, win win!

The cotton swab container is one of my favorites and I may or may not buy them for the sole purpose of reusing the container. They’re not good for cleaning your ears (although, if you read the packaging, you aren’t supposed to use them to clean your ears) but they work great for wiping up smeared eyeliner 👁👁. 

Here’s another tip: if you have a coffee cup that is adorable but not the least bit insulated and it gives you first degree burns if you try to hold it with hot liquid in it, and it also matches your living room decor…pop a chapstick (mandatory for every room in my house) and a remote in it and call it organized.

For those things that you can’t find another purpose there’s always the recycling bin. This is the system I have set up in our trash closet. A shelf each for paper products, plastics, glass, and metals. The bags show about 2 weeks worth of recycling that I dropped off last Saturday morning. Look how much didn’t go to a landfill. That’s quite a bit!

If you all promise you’re going to try to be more mindful of your habits and attempt to be less wasteful I’ll show you pics of my puppers. You promise? Okay, I knew I could count on you 😉. 

Soph has been really into cuddling lately: Sansa, me, Philip, probably anyone else who would touch her. She constantly wants attention and is going through a selfish phase (now all I can think of is Kirstie Alley in Look Who’s Talking yelling at her boyfriend that she was cheating with) and thinks she can get up on your lap anytime she wants. If we’re sitting at the table she’ll try to get between the table and me and lay on me. If I’m trying to do schoolwork on my laptop, she lays on it. She hogs the entire bed. I actually took a pic of her in bed this morning when I got up but it was kinda dark and you can’t see very well. She stretched completely across my side in my spot and was kicking Philip on the other side 🤭 She also intentionally knocks my phone out of my hand if she wants attention 😡. That dog is something else. Sansa is so good. To be honest, Soph sets a really low bar for her but she’s fantastic anyway. She’s into catching lately. She brings you a ball and wants you to toss it up so she can catch it. She’s been back to her pre-Sophie self lately so maybe she’s finally come to terms with having a new sister. I mean, it took her 7.5 months but she made it and that’s all that counts 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is her pouting because I wouldn’t give her any chips. 

And this her just being a weirdo..her normal Sophie self. 

Trying to prevent homework from happening. 

Sansa cuddles are the best 💜

That’s all for this week. Enjoy your extra hour of darkness..err, I mean daylight 🙄.