Doggie Day Camp

I love great customer service. I really do! If a waiter screws up my order and comps me something without asking, but doesn't really affect my dinner, I usually put a portion of the cost of the item in the tip.

So I love the place I take Red for doggie day camp. It's a place called Kennel Club USA. It's on the way to work and has a huge facility for playing. They post pictures on Facebook and Red has been featured a few times. It's not cheap, but I love it. Here's why:

After finishing up Red's last package, finances were tight so I could get her another one. Well Red has been emo lately and I thought a visit to day camp would help. She hasn't been in a long time. I called this morning hoping they could squeeze her in and they could. Didn't ask for my name or anything. I walk in with Red and they knew her by name. It had been 3-4 months since her last visit. I was amazed. They knew her name when she was going 1-2 times a month, but I was seriously impressed they still remembered her. Obviously Ref is unforgettable, but that's as her mom saying it. So good job kennel club. You've got a customer for life. I just wish you would separate dogs for feedings when boarding.

Perhaps this is the way to game the system

So speaking of price adjustments, I was also able to score two more price adjustments today. One for a dress I bought on Thursday and on the hubster's Christmas gift. Well not quite yet on the gift, but its from Nordstrom so I don't anticipate a problem. So should I just buy everything I want before Christmas and then make the rounds for price adjustments the day after?

Is it worth the gas? For me this time around, it was. Adding up my table, dress, and gift, I will have saved $270!

Score!

So the hubster and I decided we needed to get a new dining room table. Our current one was too small and I wasn't too happy with the glass top. So a few clicks on a few sites and we ended up at Cost Plus World Market. We originally went in for another table that had an extension leaf, but came home with this



The Napa dining table. You can't tell from this picture, but this table has a lot of character. The top has all sorts of ruts and grooves. We both loved it. We picked it up on Sunday. It was $449, but we paid $400 with a 10% off coupon. We knew that if we were to upgrade to a real grown up table, it would cost more than an ikea table. We were ok with that.

Well imagine my surprise when I saw that they were offering an additional 15% off today. I was a little bummed, but 5% wasn't enough to get me to move. However, I saw that the table was 50% off! What?!?!

I called them up and asked if they did price adjustments, and they did! I went to the store, got my 50% off and another 15% off on top of that. So the table we original paid $400 for, we ended up paying $212.

That's cheaper than the nicest ikea dining table. Makes me love it even more.

Who knew?

That my Red, the happiest dog you will ever meet, turned into the biggest grinch this Christmas. Not a single one of her characteristic smiles. She's just been moping all day. Makes my heart a little sad.

Leave it to me

To leave on a shopping trip for Christmas presents to come home with two dresses for myself. I did manage to grab the last of the hubster's gifts.

By the way, the two dresses I bought were amazing. I love them. Now to find a place/event to wear them to!

I have the best husband ever

I came home from shopping to find that he recorded "I want a dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown". He knows I love snoopy and dogs. How could I not love it!

How young is too young?

For a cell phone or more like a smart phone in today's world?  The stepson is in 6th grade.  One day while he was with us, he asked to us the hubster's phone to call a friend... a girl friend, not girlfriend, but girl friend. Anyway, once, this friend had his number, the hubster's phone started to blow up.  Once Friend A got the number, she passed on to her many friends.  It was out of control.  Of course, the hubster could not have been prouder.

Anyway, the hubster wants to get the stepson a phone for Christmas.  He is 11.  Is that too young or am I just an old fart?  I have no problems with getting a "dumb" phone, but the hubster is concerned about the cool factor.  WTF?!?!  Anyway, did you know it costs $89 for a regular brick cell phone with talk and text capability only?  On the other hand, you can get an iPhone 4 for one penny.  These are both with 2 year contracts.  Yes, you have to get at minimum a $20 data plan with any smart phone.

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves by giving him a smart phone for a few reasons:

1. He's not responsible enough to monitor his data usage.  3 Mbs is not a lot.  When you tell him, he can play on the computer for an hour, he's never off when the hours is over.  Overage charges for data is a minimum of $20
2. Other people will use it or take it.  I fear he'll show up with someone else's phone with sim cards switched out or something
3. Is there parental control for these types of things?  Will he be able to browse anything on the internet?

I think these are legitimate concerns.  The hunbster and I need to take care of these issues before we proceed.  There's only 5 days until Christmas.  That doesn't leave us a lot of time.

I'm crazy

I saw this at Target and bought it.



For my future kid. I mean look at it. How could I not buy it?

It looks exactly like Hobbes! Even if we never have a kid, I can now dress up as Calvin for Halloween!

A visit with the niece and nephew

The mil and sil came up this weekend and she brought the kiddos with her too. This is the first time I've spent and extended amount of time with them. They are a hoot and they loved the pupperoos.

Here are some pictures from the visit:



Jackson and Egg Roll



Piper finding a place to sleep



Piper settling in



Egg Roll claiming her spot on the air mattress



Red sprawled out and exhausted from the kids



Red and Piper

They are so cute ( both the dogs and kids). It was an eventful night because we ended up taking the mil to the ER in the middle of the night and that messes up the kids sleep schedule. The hubster was up all night with his mom and I took over at 7 so he could go to work. I woke up at 4 am because my stomach started to hurt. I think the new meds I'm on have wrecked my stomach. Any notion of hunger and I am useless. I just keel over in painful stomach cramps. I think any carbonation also upsets it.

I did manage to get some Christmas shopping done. I think I did pretty good and crosses 4 people off the list.

The icing on the fucking cake

Our bags did not make it onto our new flight. Now I have to wait at the airport for another 30 minutes to get my bag!!!

Cookie exchange

Is it bad etiquette to show up to a cookie exchange with no cookies? I had every intention of making cookies today when I was supposed to get home at 7:00pm!!

Now that my arrival time has been pushed back 3.5 hours I don't really have the time...

:(

The best part of my day

I'm still on my way home from San Diego. Another 3 hours before I'm back in Columbus. And this has been the best part of my day



Ugh I'm tired of eating airport food. Three sandwiches in one day and what probably amounts to $50 worth of food. What a waste of money!

I hate you San Diego airport

Flipping $20 for two panini sandwiches with two slices of turkey, one slice of cheese and one slice of bacon!

I hate that you only have two food options in terminal 1!!!!!

What else can go wrong?

Woke up early today to catch my flight home to Columbus and everything is going fine. Get to airport early. No line at the gate counter, no line at security, got a breakfast sandwich and boarded without issue.

Push back from gate and oops, the steering doesn't work!

Here we are an hour later and we are still on the ground. Lame. Now getting home in time to grab the dogs is up in the air :( I miss my little fur faces!

Hopefully they fix the problem and we can get out of here. The hubster needs to work tomorrow!

But I have a feeling were meant to stay in sunny So Cal!

This is what death feels like

My body has betrayed me and I've spent all day in agony in bed with non stop chills and throwing up everything I've eaten.

The kick in the pants: my mom made me a home cooked dinner of lobster and other goodies and the sheer smell of it makes me want to vomit. :(. FML.

Disneyland!!!

The hubster and I spent the day at the happiest place on earth with my brother and his girlfriend. It was probably the most relaxed visit to the park we've ever had. I think it helped that because of my recent headaches we avoided three of the most popular rides: space mountain, star tours, and big thunder mountain.

I love going to Disney during the holidays. I love the decorations!









I wanted this hat soooooo badly, but it didn't fit right. The ears didn't sit right and it was tight. Everyone else's ears looked fine. Jealous!!!

*sigh*

Hubster picture of the day

Lols

Cutest napkin

Delta has new napkins. They are so cute!

Christmas cards

They finally came in! And they are ready to be sent out!




Three different version: which one will you receive?

Dog picture of the day

Sweet dreams!

And so it begins

The step son asked to use the hubster's phone to call a friend -a friend who happens to be a girl. Oh dear. And one call led to another and another and soon the girl's friend were calling the hubster's number. Oh dear.

So now we may be switching gears and getting the step son a phone for Christmas. It seems time. And time for a lot of other discussions...

The search for Chinese food

Ever since I've moved to Columbus, I've been on the hunt for authentic Cantonese food.  Something to remind me of home when I start craving Chinese food.  I've tried three different places and I tried the third tonight.  The first was Yuen Lee with the hubster.  It was ok.  It was a mix of Chinese and Vietnamese food.  The gai lan was old, but it was only ok.  The second was Sunflower something or other with my mom.  Eh, it was also ok, but it was also 30 minutes from home.  Not going to drive that far for ok food.

I saw this third place called Asian Taste in New Albany.  I looked it up on Yelp and it had some ok reviews, but they mentioned they had an authentic "Chinese" menu.  We went tonight with the hubster and the step son.  It looked very promising when the menu came out, but that's kinda where it all ended.  I ordered the hot and spicy squid and the seafood pan fried noodles from the chinese menu.  The squid was different than what I am used to, but it was ok.  The seafood pan fried noodles were also ok. (lol sensing a trend yet).  It had mussels in it (that was a first).  I think Joy Food One down the street is better and closer.

Anyway, the food was ok, could have dealt with it and would have been willing to come back to try other items on the menu, but the service was atrocious.  I mean there were two women servicing this tiny restaurant.  So the final verdict: not going back.

Jingle Bell Run 2012

Well, work decided to sponsor the Jingle Bell Run this year and I signed up.  In fact, I am a team captain.  Fantastic except this team captain has a lingering headache for the last 3 weeks and wasn't up to actually running it.  Instead, I cheered on my fellow co-workers and pretended to run the race =(  Here are some pictures:

 Me as a reindeer

 Group picture

 Group "fun" picture

(we are not that fun)

After the race

Since the company paid for the registration fee, I demanded that everyone wear a holiday themed accessories.  I think we look great.  Will also help for our annual recognition banquet.  I'm still bummed  I couldn't run.  I really need to get back into it.

Good news is that so far today has had the least number of headaches and the ones that have hit aren't nearly as severe as the past week.  *knocks on wood*  I hope I didn't jinx myself and hopefully, this is a turning point for me and friendly headache.

Purple Ombre

I had $15 in Kohl's cash that was about to expire, so I went to Kohl's hoping to find something useful to spend it on.  A few things came time mind: like the $100 fur trimmed tree skirt I wanted on Black Friday which was now marked down to $40.  With $15 Kohl's cash and 20% off coupon, that was still going to be more than what I wanted to pay.  I really went out with the goal to spend no actual money and just spend $15 exactly.

So after circling the store two to three times, I had in my hands a pair of black soft and cozy lined tights.  Practical and almost a "need".  I still had $6 to spend!  I thought leggings, but they didn't have any plain black leggings.  So while walking around in the hosiery department, I saw them.  Purple ombre tights and I bought them!

No clue what I am going to wear with them, but I thought they were neat and so cute.  So two pairs of tights = $0.83.  Kohl's does this wonky thing where they take off the Kohl's cash first and then takes off the 20%, otherwise, I would have underspent the $15.