ugh.

Sorry for the let down, it's just how I'm feeling this week. I don't have anything enlightening to share, no good stories or words of wisdom. This week, I'm just ugh and as my husband always says "what are you gonna do?"

Last Friday, we got a phone that sort of turned our world upside down. Not to worry, it was nothing bad. The call was from our dog walker, informing us that starting immediately "camp" is no longer happening at our house. Done and done, just like that. For those of you that know us, you know that we've been hosting a dog camp in our backyard for the last year. Yeah, I suppose it sounds kind of crazy...

This is how it happened. We moved to Fairfield and had to pay for a dog walker every day. On top of a brand new mortgage, that was a tough bill to swallow. After a year, the owner of the company came to us and said - I need a yard in Fairfield to host all of my Fairfield and Westport clients, and your yard is perfect, are you interested? Instead of paying X each month for walks, we wouldn't pay for Quigley anymore and he'd pay us XXX to host this camp. Uh - YEAH! I remember the call so well, Brian and I were giddy like we'd just won the lottery. "Do you know what we could do with that money?!" So, we quickly agreed. My parents were so skeptical and never liked the idea, and I'm sure a lot of people would have said no thanks, but for us - it was perfect! Every day for 2 hours about 10 dogs came to our house to play in the yard with our dog. The dogs and walkers never came inside the house, they just did their thing in the yard and off they went. In turn, Quigley was really tired at the end of each day and we were getting paid for it.

Now, after the novelty of the extra cash each month wore off, and our yard took a little beating, Brian and I agreed that we couldn't do this forever. Maybe we'd stop early next year, when we felt our budget could handle it. In the last 14 months, we've been able to do so much to our house, pay off a lot of our debt and live pretty comfortably, all thanks to camp. Unfortunately, for everyone, one of the dogs got loose on Friday, ran up the street and was detained by Animal Control. Oops! For the record, there is nothing illegal about camp, its perfectly safe and legal. The owner just doesn't feel comfortable hosting it in our yard anymore, based on the neighbors reaction and how Animal Control behaved, so he pulled the plug. No more "rent" and we're back to paying for walks. Gulp!

So, I was already feeling a little stressed about all of us this when I sat down next to Quigs on Tuesday night to cuddle. Much to my surprise, while I was petting him, I found something crawling on him. A FLEA! UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Every dog owner knows that you could some day fight the flea battle but in 3 years, we've never even come close. We had no idea what to do, and I completely panicked. At 10:15pm at night, we stripped our house. The beds, the couches, pillows, clothes from the week. Anything that Quigley had touched in the last few days, we threw everything in the wash. I might have said the F bomb more that night than ever before in my life. I mean, seriously?! It was back to the vet for Quigley yesterday for the 3rd time in a month, and you know those visits are never cheap. So while he was at the vet, we did more laundry, cleaned the floors and treated each carpet. Madelyn and I slept at my parents last night because I didn't want her to be around all the chemicals. This morning Brian treated the yard, which should hopefully be the end of it all. I'll be damned at this point if I see another flea for the rest of my life. So help me God.

So, I'm exhausted and annoyed, but that's life. Ce la vie. I'm sorry for the ramble. That's where we've been, and what we're up to :) Hopefully I'll be back next week with something more fun to chat about!

Happy Thursday!