Feel Like Complaining

This has been a nice week sitting for Annabelle and her cat siblings, Murray and Tobie. They had another cat which disappeared in September. He was a wanderer and just never came home after his last excursion. I'm so happy I was able to get probably the last photo of Rusty on his perch. Just one bite? Need a guest author? Their owners are the nicest people, I love staying here. With the exception of Anna pulling too hard on walks and not being able to find a comfortable bed to sleep in; this is probably my favorite place to stay. I'll be here again in a month just for a weekend. They do not quibble over my prices and even left me a $100 tip. They really appreciate being able to leave home and enjoy their trip without worrying about their pets. It makes me feel pretty darn good. I've been really down lately and not sure why. Maybe it's just the dark, dreary, days or the shit show going on in this country we used to call America. Clients like this...

We had a nice relaxing week off, although it was a tad boring too. The carpet got shampooed again. I sure love our Bissell carpet cleaner, it makes the job so easy. Wednesday we went to a new donut place called Hello Sugar. They specialize in made to order donuts so we got a dozen of mini ones. They look big but are only about 2 inches across. I probably could have eaten the whole dozen myself. Saturday night Faith went to a potluck/game night at the home of a woman in her camping group. We took advantage of that time to go to Tony's favorite place, The Old Spaghetti Factory. It has been a few years since we've been there. That was the restaurant where Faith had her first full blown panic attack 10 years ago. It was crowded as usual that night, as well as warm. We were sitting in the small trolly car and she was full from dinner. That was enough to set her off. Although all of those factors put together was the cause, her brain attributed it to food. She had several ...

January is just bouncing along. We've been busy with meeting new clients/dogs and booking most of them for later in the year. At the end of this month I'll be sitting for a week at one place. Then I'm starting February sitting Sasha for 11 days, and then another week at the end of the month too. That's a lot of time away from home in two months time. Last week we had Pele again as well as Chico for a night. Pele's Mom is done with her classes so I'm not sure when we'll see him again. Plus they got another dog which has already scuffled with Pele. She will have to work on getting them more used to each other but we might have them both sometime. Chico will be back two more times this year. He is so easy peasy! So far we are totally dog free this week; what shall we do? It will probably be pretty boring around here.

OK, are you ready to hear my dog sitting stats for the year? For sitters who watch more than one dog, this isn't a major accomplishment, but for me it is! Income: more than doubled from last year Nights away from home:  95 Pets watched: 114, repeats and new, dogs and cats Miles driven for work:  1550 All time total reviews: 75 5-star All time total repeats: 25 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm not sure I will ever get the hang of my NuWave. I read the directions and fired it up. Trouble is, I was watching Jim Jeffries on Netflix and didn't expect this to happen so quickly. The oven cooks so differently and I keep messing up the timing. Damn. We turned it over, covered it with foil and let it cook longer, then glazed it with pineapple and cherries. Still though, it looks like a mountain of burnt meat. Ham jerky anyone? I don't think they will invite me to star in their infomercial anytime soon. It did NOT turn out like...