Backing up a bit ...

It's been far too long since I've written - there's so much to catch up on!!

Maybe brief points?

That weekend I was worried about karaoke and Western Day?  Interesting.

Karaoke wasn't scheduled until 9pm that Friday night (9 pm!), which makes me feel old at even thinking about going out that late.  So, we had some time to kill that evening.  We tried a new Chinese restaurant (so good!) and then watched silly youtube videos for a few hours.  We took Honey for a walk, and played with her for a while.

And then ... we found ringworm on her belly.  John took a picture and emailed it to his dad (a vet) to get an unofficial official diagnosis, and so we could figure out how to treat her.  (Basically we had to rub cream on her belly for 30 days, and wash everything in the house).  This of course changed our plans dramatically for the next month!

But, we couldn't do anything that night, so we were still planning on karaoke.  Until John got a text from a classmate - karaoke was canceled.  Instead, John's classmates were getting together for a party at someone's house. 

We got there about 9:30 pm.  And were the first to arrive - the hostess was still in the shower!  She let us in, and then rushed out to the store to get chips and dip.  By this time, John and I were just looking at each other in shock - I couldn't get over the fact that it was after 9pm and the party hadn't even started yet!

People finally started arriving at 10 - and that's when the party actually got going.  And let me just say ... I love John's classmates.  Late Friday night ... bunch of Grad Students ... after a week of their hardest exams yet ... and there was practically no alcohol to be found.  I think 2 of the 15+ people who showed up had one drink.  Everyone was just having fun and enjoying each other's company.  We played board games, and then had a dance competition with the Wii.  I got some priceless video of John dancing to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" (we got Rickrolled!!) and dancing to Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe".  The night was amazing - we left about midnight, and the party was going strong.

Thanks to Honey's ringworm, we didn't go to Western Day on Saturday - we spent the whole day cleaning everything in the house!  By the end of the weekend, the house was cleaner I think than it was when we moved in!

We'd been planning and had actually invited several couples from our church to spend Thanksgiving Day with us ... but we had to cancel because of Honey.  Apparently ringworm is a bit like Athlete's Foot - not really that serious unless it affects small children - and all of the people we'd invited had small children.  We did NOT want to be responsible for causing a ringworm outbreak among the children at our church!  So, instead we canceled and made plans to go to John's parents for Thanksgiving.

Which is another story coming up! 

We Bought a House - Part Three

So, where were we?

We put an offer on the house the first week in May, with a closing date of May 24th - which just happened to be our 4th wedding anniversary!  Obviously it was meant to be!

Various drama abounded throughout the month ... after approving and entering into the contract, the seller became angry at her realtor for "letting her sell so low".  I worked on projects at work that required 60+ hours a week for two weeks, as well as tried to pack up the house and clean it and get ready to move!

John spent the month working his summer job, which changed from 20 hours a week afternoons to 50 hours a week days and weekends, as well as juggling finances to deal with the last minute costs of moving and the down payment.

But the biggest headache/project, was figuring out the flooring for the house.  Because they were not allowed to sell the house without flooring, the contract stipulated that we would receive $5000 to get flooring installed.  After much discussion with the banks, and countless hours at Lowes (we got to know the guys in the flooring department really  well.  They're awesome, by the way!), we decided to have laminate installed throughout the house, with carpet in the bedrooms.  There was a very cheap linoleum already in the bathrooms, so we'd leave that as is, and at a later date install tile.

The problem all came down to timing.  We couldn't get the money to pay for everything until the closing - but Lowe's couldn't order the laminate that we needed until they were paid.  The flooring had to be installed within a week of the closing, but Lowe's delivery time was about 2-3 weeks.  It wasn't happening.

John brought up the idea of Lumber Liquidators for the laminate; they had a store that he passed on the way to work.  We went over there, and they were happy to work with us.  We ended up putting all the laminate on a credit card, and then getting re-imbursed by the bank at the closing.  

We had also received permission to install the flooring ourselves - saving on the installation costs, and allowing us to get a higher quality flooring.  Between the carpet from Lowe's and the laminate from Lumber Liquidators, we spent the entire $5000.  

We closed late afternoon on Thursday, May 24th.  John wasn't able to get off work, so I went to the closing by myself, armed with my cell phone and my in-laws phone number.  (John's parents love working with real estate, and have bought and sold numerous houses.  They were super helpful giving advice throughout the whole process!).  I even called John's mom at one point during the closing because I got confused, and she was able to explain things to me much better than the lawyer.

So, we got the best anniversary gift ever!  A new house!

And immediately went to work.  We had a deadline to get the flooring in!

We spent Thursday and Friday evenings cleaning and sealing the floors throughout the house.  John's dad came to visit for a few hours on Saturday, and he showed us how to install the laminate.  My brother came for a few days to help us, and we spent the next 5 days working like crazy to get the laminate installed.  Lowe's came and installed the carpeting about half-way through the process.  

Ready for some pictures? 

Doesn't the laminate look nice?  Throughout most of the house, John did all the cutting with the saw, and I did most all the actual placement and installation.  My brother helped for a few days, and John did some installation in the trickiest parts.

We chose "Blacksburg Barn Board" as our laminate.  It's gorgeous!

The hardest part, I think was getting started.  We didn't really know what we were doing at first, and the fireplace tiles were interesting to work around.

Looking into the dining room.

We set up the table saw in the front bedroom instead of the garage to save the air conditioner.  It was already 90+ degrees outside - we saw no reason to air condition the garage!

We still had a long way to go.  You can see my brother in the top left.

Here is a shot after about the third night of hard work.  It's a bit hard to see, but the corner on the left goes into the Master Bedroom, and is a triangular shaped nook.  That plus the doorway made cutting the pieces to size a bit tricky.  I was so proud of John when he figured it out!

We're making progress!

Most evenings we brought Honey with us.  Since we were working like crazy, we hated the thought of her being home alone in the evenings as well as the days.  Plus, this gave her a chance to get used to the new house.  Of course, she wasn't too sure about the whole thing.

With no furniture, there's no place for me to hide from the loud table saw.
Except outside, but I don't want to go there in case you leave me.

She wasn't quite sure what to make of all this.  Whenever we stayed late working and she got tired (SHE got tired, lol), she'd go hide in a closet where it was dark and take a nap.  Several nights I had to go find her so we could go home.

Can we go home now?  It's bedtime.

It took John forever to figure out the closets.  I'm still not sure why, but for some reason it was complicated.  The fact that this was our 4th night of hard work and we were exhausted didn't help, I'm sure.

Almost there!  You can see the carpet has been installed by now, too!

With the carpet, we also purchased a new fridge and dishwasher at Lowe's.  John wanted to buy me a new stove instead of a new dishwasher, but I refused.  I can learn how to cook on an old stove as long as it works.  But I want a good dishwasher - the one in the other house had been annoying me since we got it.

Thankfully, he agreed.  And after a great deal of bleach and elbow grease, the old stove works just fine.

We left the linoleum by the garage door and laundry room, and will tile that later.  

I had to include this shot.  This was just after we'd put the last piece of laminate in.  It was 1 am, and we were so exhausted we could hardly drive home.  We still needed to do all the thresholds and put the baseboards back up.  And clean and actually move.  But the floor was in!

Hooray!!  I think we went to Sonic on the way home to get some celebratory milkshakes!

And finally:  some finished shots:

Looking toward the front door, with Honey

The front door, all finished

Looking toward the kitchen and eating area.

Even with just the floors done, the house was so much nicer!  Next up:  We're finally moving in!!

In which I have to choose between posting something mediocre or not posting anything. Guess which one I choose.

I have nothing really to say today.

John is starting his new lab today ... he was a bit concerned this weekend because he hadn't heard from the PI in the lab, and thought that maybe the PI had double-booked students.  I haven't heard from John today except for a brief email saying he didn't know when he'd be done.  So, he's in lab somewhere!

I spent the weekend baking and baking and walking and baking.  Silly me couldn't for the life of me remember whether I normally follow the recipe for sugar cookies and use powdered sugar, or regular sugar.  So I used regular sugar.  Mistake.  They still taste good, but they aren't amazing.  I'm still a bit upset about it.

Not enough to remake the 60 cookies sitting in my freezer, though.

Saturday we went to the local park and took Honey for a walk - we walked about four miles.  Then Sunday evening we met up with one of John's classmates and his girlfriend and their dog, and all went for another walk for about 2 miles.  It was one of those situations where we really shouldn't have gone because both John and I had stuff to get done before Monday ... but we didn't want to push off the relationship that we're trying to build.

Of course, they might completely shun us after John brought up politics.  But, probably not.  Hopefully not.

I am thinking and writing in very choppy, incomplete sentences today.  I think it's because today's Monday.  Or the fact that I'm only now getting caffeine into my system.

A Dog Bed for Honey

Ever since she was a puppy, Honey has loved anything soft.  From the moment we brought her home, if there was any type of pillow or soft blanket around, it was hers to curl up with.   

Honey quickly decided that our pillows were much nicer than her mere blankets.

I think it might have something to do with her mixed heritage - that perhaps her joints aren't all that comfortable at times.  Considering she limped and messed up both her hind legs just running around the back yard when she was 6 months to a year old ... I'm going with that theory.  It gives me an excuse to pamper her with soft things!

For the most part, Honey is fine wandering the house, sleeping on the couch or our bed.  But she's grown into a fairly good-sized dog - 61 lbs when I took her to the vet this summer.  Sometimes we like to sleep at night without her lying on top of us or having to kick her to let us get some blankets (yes, she hogs the blankets).  We also like to sleep through the night, without her waking us up to go outside at 3:30 am.  And sometimes she just misbehaves and needs a time-out.

That's what her bed is for.  She is crate trained - and honestly doesn't mind being in there at all.  The only times she gets upset when I put her in her bed is when she thinks she's missing out on something, or if she's in trouble.  I had made a pillow for her bed a few years ago when I first got my sewing machine.  It was my very first project, and a little bit sad.  It looked fine at first, but then all the stuffing got stomped down and now it's hardly a pillow at all. 

So, I finally worked up the energy to make her another pillow.  (Please be nice - I'm totally self-trained on the sewing machine, and am very slowly learning!)

First off, I found two pieces of fabric in my stash - whenever I go to a craft store I check out their clearance fabric section to see what I can find.  Those two pieces of fabric probably cost me less than $5.  The only problem was that they were both super thin - and that worried me.  I didn't want Honey's nails to ruin the fabric just through normal use!

So, I got out some batting, and sewed a piece of batting to each piece of fabric, creating a quilted design on each side.  The batting became thoroughly attached to the fabric, and made the overall piece much sturdier.  I think the batting was about $10, but I've still got most of the package left.

Side One - with diamonds

Side Two - it's hard to see, but each square is quilted.

After that I sewed the two pieces together, leaving a space for the stuffing to go in.  Having learned from the last pillow that the stuffing will most likely get matted down and flatten the pillow out, I wanted to create a way to re-stuff the pillow at a later time.  Solution:  velcro!

I left a tab on each side of the open seam, and sewed the velcro pieces to the respective fabric pieces.  I then used some iron-on stitches to clean it up a bit.  It looks a bit rough, and I didn't take any pictures of it, but honestly, I was just winging it.  All the messiness is inside the pillow, so as long as it looks good from the outside, that's fine.  Right?

I didn't have any stuffing immediately on hand, but was so excited to have a (nearly) finished project that I called Honey over for a photo shoot!

You want me to do what again?

I'm only here because I love you.  In two seconds, I'm going to go see if there's a squirrel outside.

Rather than pay a bunch of money for bags of stuffing, John and I went to Fred's and bought 4 pillows for $10 and ripped them open.  We then stuffed the pillow (the Velcro works wonderfully) and surprised Honey with it!

She wasn't really interested.

Notice:  the lack of a dog in this picture.

Although, to be fair, we'd left her home alone most of the day, and this was only about 5 minutes after we got home.  She was too excited to see us to sit still for the camera or check out something new.  All she wanted to do was get some love and attention.  And maybe play.  And take a walk.  And cuddle.  All at once.

So, we moved the pillow into her bed - considering my lack of measurements (I just picked two pieces of cloth that were relatively the same size and cut them to match each other), I'm thrilled to say that the pillow fits her bed perfectly!

Perfection!

Once it was in her bed, Honey finally took interest and started checking the pillow out.  She seemed pleased.

Actually, we bribed her by putting a treat in her bed.  She was still too excited to be still.

Since then, I've noticed Honey going "missing" at random times, and found her curled up on her pillow in her bed.  She always gets up quickly when I walk in - so as not to let me think that she likes being in her bed, but over the past 4 days I've walked in on her a good 6-7 times. 

I think she likes it!

Epic long post detailing the best weekend ever!

What is it, Monday already?

So, this weekend was probably one of the best weekends we've had in a long time!  For me, it kinda started on Thursday.

For some reason known only to her, Honey decided to stay up all night on Wednesday barking.  John slept through it, thankfully, but she kept me up far too late.  So ... I called in to work the next morning and took Thursday off.  I spent the morning in my pajamas and did laundry and finished sewing Honey a pillow for her bed.  (Why?  I don't know.  She certainly didn't deserve it after keeping me up all night!  Still, it's soooo nice to have one more project checked off the list!)

I'll post pictures soon - Right now is an overall summary of the weekend.

So ... Friday came, and John had another test.  I went back to work, and spent the entire day working on a project that I've only just now mostly finished.  I made enough project on Friday to be almost giddy by the time 5 pm came around.  John was pleased with how his test went, and did not want to have a quiet evening at home.  So, we decided on a fun evening out.

First we drove over to Fred's to pick up some cheap pillows.  Pillow stuffing is expensive, but we bought four good-sized pillows at Fred's for $10.  Perfect for ripping apart and re-using the stuffing in a dog bed.

After that we made our way over to Chick-fil-A for dinner, and went to the movies!  We hadn't been to see a movie in months and months - I think the last one we saw was "Up" ... or maybe "Star Trek".  Whichever one came out more recently. (Edit:  Apparently they both came out in 2009.)

Even though I would have happily seen "Hotel Transylvania", John talked me into seeing the new movie "Argo".  Neither one of us knew much about it, but we'd seen the advertisement on tv about it, and read a few reviews about how good it was supposed to be.

It. Was. Amazing.  For the first time in my life I went to a movie where people actually applauded when it was over.  I will say that it's rated "R" for a reason - it's not a movie for kids.  But it's rated that way primarily for language and some violence - no gore or sex.  The acting was very well done, and the editing kept things interesting.  Definitely an amazing thriller, and worth the price of the tickets!

After the movie, we went to Target and bought a new tablecloth for the Dining Room (is it sad that that makes me super excited?) and then went to Cold Stone and got ice cream before heading home.

Saturday, we slept in, and then headed out for brunch at a new local restaurant.  It's only about two blocks from our house, and they opened close to three months ago.  John ordered their Shrimp & Grits, while I ordered a salad - not a very good "brunch" dish, but it was what I was feeling like.  The food was perfect - John's grits definitely tasted home-made, not processed; while my salad was the freshest I've had in forever.  John told me yesterday that that's his new favorite restaurant!

Since the weather was positively perfect (70-75 degrees F), we decided to spend the day working outside.  The flower bed in teh front of the house needed some love, and since neither one of us had any experience whatsoever with gardening, we decided to visit a few gardening shops and get some advice.

The first place we went had only herbs, veggies, and mums, and the workers there were distinctly unhelpful.  The second place ended up being a planter store, not a gardening store at all!  We finally gave up on the local business aspect and just went to Lowes.  After all, we only had the one day to get the flower bed taken care of!  We couldn't spend it all visiting shops!

After about an hour wandering the Lowes garden session, and a (very) brief consultation with one of the workers there, we bought some flowers, plants, garden soil, and tools, and headed home.  We started working in the 11x4 flower bed about 2:30 pm - and finished about 5:30 pm.  Not bad!  I then trimmed some bushes while John mowed the grass.  We were going to clean the house later that evening, but by the time 7:30 came around we were so sore we could hardly move!  I think we were in bed by 8:30 pm!

I have pictures of the gardening project too - that'll receive it's own post soon!

We spent Sunday recovering from Saturday - we didn't think we'd worked that hard, but both John and I are still so sore we can hardly move!  Still, we went to both the morning and the evening service at church, and after church last night went over to a building/business dedication.  The man that John has worked with for the past 2 years before he started school in August wanted to dedicate his building to the Lord, so most of the church went over there after the evening service to fellowship, eat, and pray.  It was fun - and we didn't get home until about 10:30 pm.

John's Bible study is at our house tonight - so we ended up frantically cleaning house until about 11:30 pm last night to make it presentable.  It still needs a little bit of work, but hopefully John can do some of that while I cook dinner.

And now ... life back to normal!  Only with a really cute front flower bed!  Yay!!

Sleepy Day

I finally feel somewhat normal!  Yay for feeling better after colds!

For some reason Honey has decided that 2:30 am is the perfect time to get me out of bed so she can go outside.  She never bothers John about it ... no, she comes up to me and starts licking my arm until I wake up and let her outside.  After three nights of this, I'm all for putting her in her own bed (crate) for the next week at night instead of letting her wander the house.

Yesterday morning, we were running super late in the morning; I got up on time, but John ended up sleeping in.  While he was running around frantically I made him some coffee - which doesn't sound like a big deal, except that I've only made coffee maybe twice in the four years we've been married.  I don't drink coffee, and never really learned how (the first two times I made coffee, he had to explain how!).

Well, he sent me a very sweet note later that morning, thanking me for the coffee (something he rarely ever does).  So, this morning I took a few minutes and made him coffee again.  When he went into the kitchen, he expressed surprise that I'd made him coffee, and I told him that it was because I liked his note yesterday so much.  Today he sent me a nicer one.  It's so nice to feel appreciated!

This whole thing has me thinking .... perhaps there are other things I can do that he would appreciate - things that I just normally don't think of.  Perhaps some research is in order.

 

How to Cut a Dog's Nails without Tears, Bloodshed, and Panic Attacks

Weekend Update:

Despite both John and I being sick and spending the vast majority of the weekend in bed watching Youtube videos and sleeping, we had a good weekend.

John was able to complete his 3 papers, poster project, and take-home quiz and have them all ready to turn in today.  I was able to do a few loads of laundry and pick up the house a bit.  We also cut Honey's toenails and watched the season premiere of Revenge.  (If you haven't watched that show yet ... go watch it now!  The entire first season is on Netflix.)

How to Cut Dog Toenails

Honey is not a small dog.  She weighs about 55 pounds, and is all muscle.  She does not like having her toenails trimmed, and is strong enough to really hurt us (well, me anyway) trying to get away from the evil nail clipper.  When she was still a puppy (about 9 months old), and I tried to hold her while we cut her nails, she gave me bruises that lasted for 2 weeks all over my body.⁽¹⁾   After only finishing one and a half paws, she went into a full-blown panic attack, and we had to stop.  I held her quietly for over an hour before she began to relax.  It was not good.

Obviously, we couldn't continue like that.  We tried taking her to Petsmart to get her nails trimmed, and that kinda worked for a few months.  While it wasn't extremely expensive, it was still an (unnecessary) expense, and neither John nor I were happy with how they cut her nails - sometimes we couldn't even tell they had been cut.  So, I came up with a plan.

Plan:  Prove to Honey that there is nothing scary about getting her nails cut.

I am just pretending to guard the house until you leave and I can take another nap.

Tools:

Nail File (Link is to a file similar to what we own and use)
Dog Blanket
Benedryl  (Link includes information on effects benedryl has on dogs)
Bowl
Milk

Process:

To do this, I started giving Honey about half of a benedryl every morning and evening for several days.⁽²⁾  After 3-4 days, she became very dopey and sleepy all the time.  We then took her for a long walk to further tire her out.  By the time we returned to the house, all she wanted to do was sleep.

Next, John sat and made himself comfortable in a chair, and then we put Honey belly-up in his lap.  We stretched the blanket over her belly, and tucked the ends beneath John's legs, effectively trapping her in his arms.  He held her firmly while I started trimming her nails with the nail file.

She fought for about 3 nails, and then just gave up.  She didn't have the energy or the strength to keep fighting us, and so she submitted and let us do with her as we wanted.  I was extremely careful not to cut her nails back too far (the last thing we wanted was for this to be painful for her), and we kept a close eye on her to make sure she didn't panic.

She didn't - in fact she almost fell asleep.

When I finished trimming all four paws, we did not immediately release her.  Instead, John held her while I went to the kitchen, got her blue puppy bowl, poured about half a cup of milk into it, and returned.  While she was still being held, I let her drink about half of the bowl of milk.  Then John released her, and I moved the bowl to the floor.  She happily finished the bowl of milk, came over to us to be petted, and then went to take a nap.

No fighting, no panicking, no bruising.  And the actual process took less than 15 minutes.⁽³⁾

Since then, we've been reducing the amount of benedryl given to her beforehand.  She still needs a little bit to calm her nerves, but a single benedryl the day of works fine. Hopefully as she gets older we can take her off the benedryl completely.

We only use her blue puppy bowl for milk, and she only gets milk after her toenails are cut.  Now she gets excited when her blue bowl comes out, because she knows that even though her nails are getting trimmed, she's getting milk before it's all over.  She only fights now when she's uncomfortable (for instance last month she decided that she didn't like to be held belly-up.  Once we figured that out, she stopped fighting), and it's never bad enough to give us bruises.

A few notes:

1.  In all the times that Honey fought with us and struggled against us during this process, she never once tried to bite us.  She would scratch (not on purpose, but because she had long nails!) and throw her weight around and merely do her best to escape.  Trying to restrain her at those points became difficult and dangerous for everyone involved: John, Me, and Honey.

2.  I'm not advocating drugging animals, except for extreme situations and under the approval of a veterinarian.  The dosage and use of benedryl were all approved by our family veterinarian, and the purpose was to prevent further harm to both John and I as well as Honey.  The point is we are working with Honey to make her comfortable with this process, and as she becomes more accustomed to it we will be weaning her off the benedryl.

3.  John's parents used this technique (sans benedryl) when they got their new puppy, a purebred bassett hound.  Without the traumatic experiences that we had with Honey, the immediate reward after cutting nails worked like a charm from the beginning.  Due to a sensitive stomach, the bassett cannot have milk, but can have cheese.  So, my Mom in Law feeds the bassett cheese after every paw, and everyone is happy and relaxed through the whole process.  The trick is tying the nail cutting experience to something happy - like a rare treat.

Droopy Saturday

Thank goodness we stopped at Rite Aid yesterday for more medicine!  John was insistent yesterday that we needed to go to the drugstore to get some "good medicine".  When he showed me what he'd bought, I gave him a look and said, "That's the exact same stuff we have at home that I've been giving you the past two days.  We've still got loads of it!" 

But now it looks like we're going to need it - I've come down with the same cold.  Ugh.  I got home from work and we spent the evening in bed with the laptop watching Eureka on Netflix.  John had never seen the show before, and I had only watched the first 3-4 episodes back when it came out originally years ago.  It's pretty good.  If you looking for a relatively light-hearted show with a whole bunch of psuedo-science, check it out. 

One of the reasons we like to shop at Rite Aid is because they sell dog toys for $1 apiece.  Considering Honey rips up all her toys moments after receiving them, we're not going to spend much on toys for her.  But $1 to watch her face light up at the sight of the new toy, and then play joyously with it for a few minutes?  Totally worth it.

Hopefully John feels well enough to get some schoolwork done today.  He's got quite a lot due on Monday, and because he's been sick hasn't worked on anything since Wednesday.  Me?  I'm going to spend most of the day in bed, alternating between doing laundry and resting and taking care of Honey.   

This & That

Bits of Randomness:

Thursday is my favorite day of the week.  Wednesdays are still too far away from the weekend, while Fridays are too popular.  Thursdays are like the downward slope after you've just crested the hill at the end of your walk, but before you actually get to the end.  It's just a great feeling.


John's getting his first stipend paycheck this weekend.  We were super stoked to get that email.  What with various expenses this year, we've worked through the little we'd saved and been uber tight the past 4-5 months.  With both of us getting paid, we can hopefully start to build up our savings again.  What a relief!


My work has actually calmed down and gotten easier lately.  The busyness of the new school year is calming down, and this is my fourth year in this position.  By now, I've gotten most things figured out (although I'm learning that there is always something unexpected that pops up) in my normal work day.  Last year at this time one of my co-workers left for a promotion in a different company, and all his work was passed onto me.  Basically from September 2011 to June 2012 I was working both my job and his job - which was in an area completely out of my expertise.  Needless to say I was super stressed almost all of last year.  But now that they've hired someone for that position ... my life is much happier!


The house closing is tomorrow - we had an A/C contractor come out and actually fix the a/c for under $400.  And it works!  The house is actually cool again!  Of course, then we turned off all the power, so nothing works right now.  I'm going to miss that house - our first home.  But at the same time ... I don't think I could move back.


I gave Honey a dose of benedryl-laced peanut butter during lunch today.  Benedryl makes her sleepy, and I'm wanting her to be sleepy and calm so that we can cut her nails.  They are ridiculously long since neither John nor I like to cut her nails because it's such an ordeal.  That dog is strong!  We've found that the only stress-free way to cut her nails is to make sure she's very sleepy and worn out first.  So ... a day or so on benedryl, plus a few long walks equals shorter nails without bloodshed and bruises.  For us, not Honey.  Honey is perfectly fine as long as she doesn't completely freak out.  Which she only does when we don't "sedate" her.