When in doubt, call Mom and Dad.

Ok, so technically it's my dad and step-mom, but you get the point (my real mom lives too far away for me to run to her house when things get hard). Yesterday, my 7-month-old, 51 pound puppy got sick. REALLY SICK. She had crazy amounts of crap coming out both ends. She woke me up SUPER early to go out, and it was all down hill from there. By late evening, I was practically in tears not knowing what to do and completely overwhelmed. I've never owned a big dog, so dealing with one alone was especially hard. SO, I loaded Nandi and Madeleine into the car (Nandi puked in the garage on the way to the car) and drove like a bat out of hell to my dad's house (Nandi also pooped in the car on the way there). Debbie, my step-mom, met me outside to deal with Nandi as I was ready to have a nervous break down. Lucky for me (and my brothers) my dad and Debbie are GREAT at handling whatever we throw at them (and often times we throw more than any normal parents could handle at them.. we seriously tell them EVERYTHING). Debbie put Nandi in their backyard AND cleaned my car out for me. My dad made dinner for us, and I didn't even have to fix my own plate. By the time I went home, I felt like I was in one piece again, and Nandi's stomach had finally settled down. I would probably die during this deployment if I weren't so close to so much family.

What did Nandi get sick from you ask? Let me explain. Nandi is part rhodesian ridgeback, part boxer.. but mostly rhodesian ridgeback. She looks just like one except she's actually missing the ridge down her back. Way back in the day, ridgebacks were bread in Africa to be lion hunters and killers. They are the only dog in the world strong enough to kill a lion.. their name actually means "king of the lions." This means she extremely strong.. at 50 pounds, she can already over power me when she wants to (thank God for puppy school). I gave her this bone that would take a normal dog a couple of months to chew up. It took Nandi three hours. Though she was strong enough to eat it that fast, her digestive system isn't built to eat that much bone in one sitting.. so things didn't go over so well in her digestive track. Normally, she's smarter than the average dog.. but apparently not when it comes to her stomach.

Today, my dad and Debbie came over and helped me get my house in order. Everything is almost completely put away, thank God. It was really starting to overwhelm me and stress me out. With three of us working on it, things went really quickly. Things should totally come together tomorrow INCLUDING all of the stuff that belongs on the walls. Woot!

To close, I dyed my hair so that's it's closer to my original color. For those of you who don't know, I was born with bright red hair. The red has darkened a little bit over the years, but I'm still a red head. Somewhere along the line of getting it highlighted, it started to look rather blond.. and I got tired of it, and the upkeep it required. So we're back to red. I actually missed it.