Navigating the Past Week and Tropical Storm Bill

This is what the radar for Houston looks like right now.  Tropical Storm Bill just made landfall south of us, but we're getting socked by that big yellow and orange band from the system pretty much all day today.  So far it's just wet and miserable out, let's hope that's as bad as it gets and we don't see anymore flooding around here...

We've been pretty busy over this past week.  Last Wednesday Pandora had her last obedience training class and officially graduated from Intermediate Training!  She is now pretty good at listening to/obeying commands with distractions (sit, lay down, come, bed), knows how to heel when she walks with us, and even learned a new trick (spin!).  We still need to work on getting her responses more consistent and immediate, and she struggles on focusing outside, especially with "heel".  But overall she did so well and we keep saying how lucky we are to have such a great dog!

We got her a toy to reward her for all of her good work in the training classes.  She LOVES dismantling toys, so usually we get pretty heavy duty ones.  This one had felt pretty sturdy when I bought it and said the squeaker inside would work even when punctured.  Pandora demolished it.  She actually removed the squeaking devices (there were 2) from the squeaker and then proceeded to shred both the fuzzy part and the hard plastic inside.  It took her about 1 hour to get it to the state you see above and there was toy carnage EVERYWHERE!  But at least she had fun.  And on the plus side, this was originally a little gator shaped toy, and I can't say how proud I am of what my little Buckeye puppy does to Gators!!  O-H-I-O!!

On Thursday we had the first night of our summer bowling league, NASA Nerdz!  We regrouped with the rest of our team from last year and proceeded to all actually bowl pretty solid games!  We also won one of the trivia questions and got ourselves a free pizza too.  Looking forward to the rest of this season!

On Friday I had Jury duty for the first time in my life.  It was interesting.  After sitting in a large theater type room for about 2 hours I was called with a group of 64 other people to potentially sit on a jury for the 351st Court.  We left the theater room, had to wait for about half an hour in a freezing cold underground tunnel that leads to the next building over, and then crammed 20 ppl at a time into elevators that took us up to the 14th floor.  Once there we had to wait in the hallway even more, with no chairs.  Good thing I brought a book.  But the entire situation did NOT help the sore/pinching neck issue I'd been having all week.  Finally we were let into the court where the judge explained for 2 hours what would be expected of us if we were chosen for the jury.  It was interesting, however I'm absolutely certain it could have been condensed down into 1 hour instead.  Then we broke for lunch and reconvened an hour later back in the hallway, where we once again sat for over half an hour while we waited for them to let us back in.  Once we reentered the courtroom the judge informed us that the defendant, after staring at a room full of 65 people waiting to judge him, changed his mind and decided to have the judge, not a jury, rule on his case.  So we were dismissed.  It was a lot of sitting in uncomfortable places and waiting and by the time I got home my neck was MISERABLE.  I swung by the grocery store on my way home and we then proceeded to just vegge out the rest of the night.  I was exhausted.

On Saturday we slept in (so did Pandora, thank goodness.  we all needed it....) and then went to help our friend N at his business Wazoo Survival Gear.  Wazoo makes compact outdoor survival gear for people who like hiking, camping, etc, and they just recently got a huge order for 3000 fire-starter necklaces, fire-starting twine bundles, and their specialty burnable gift cards.  We love their products (Pandora wears a Wazoo dog collar!) and so we were happy to help them out.  S spent his time winding the fire-starting jute onto spools and I joined in on the necklace making.  We helped out for about 5 hours and I took supplies to make more necklaces home with me too.  S worked on his car for a while when we got home and I hunkered down in front of the TV and made more Wazoo necklaces while I caught up on my shows.  We had our favorite chipotle, sweet potato, and black bean tacos for dinner and started season 3 of Orange is the New Black (first episode was so-so, but the second one started getting interesting again).

On Sunday S went to the autocross all day, so Pandora and I were on our own.  After I walked and fed her I decided to be productive and get stuff around the house cleaned up.  So I tackled some piles of laundry, put sheets on the bed, eliminated clutter in the kitchen and bar area, and threw away some dead flowers that had been sitting on the piano for a while.  Pandora was super cute and just followed me around the whole time - gotta know what's going on!  Then I watched a movie while I finished up the rest of the Wazoo necklaces.  Around 1 I hopped into the car and drove over to the west side of town to pick up tools and supplies for my intermediate stained glass class!  This is my inspiration picture for my 2nd stained glass project and in addition to getting all of my own tools, I also got to pick out my glass colors.  I can't wait to start working on this new project!  When I got home I buttered, seasoned and wrapped 15 cobs of corn in foil, grabbed the Wazoo necklaces I had completed, and walked with Pandora over to our friend's house for our weekly Game of Thrones viewing party and pot luck dinner.  We got there early so Pandora could play with my friend L's absolutely ADORABLE little 8-week-old German Shepherd puppy, Brew (see above)!  Little Brew is definitely a handful, but he was just so darn cute!  Pandora was too fast for him still, and Pandora is a total toy hog too, but they seemed to get along quite well otherwise and proceeded to wear each other out.  I took Pandora home and gave her dinner then ran back over to our friend's house to eat a delicious pot-luck meal and watch the season finale of GoT.  A little bummed the season is over already...

And in other news, I'm back on my elimination/detox diet for a few weeks to reset my digestive system again mid-year.   My tummy has been acting up again recently and I have a big vacation coming up soon, so I figured that getting everything back on track now would make my vacation more enjoyable later.  Last night we had this delicious prosciutto wrapped peach salad (without ricotta) and I highly recommend it!  It was super flavorful and actually quite easy to make.  My digestive system is already calming down a bit, the effects of food really are quite amazing!

(Wazoo picture from here)