LifeofBobbi.com

First of all, thanks for all of your suggestions regarding acne cures!  I read all of them and am definitely going to try a few out.

Did I mention I bought a bike and have been using it to get to and from campus?  I bought a relatively cheap mountain bike from Walmart a couple weeks ago and absolutely love it.  It was a little rough getting used to biking almost 2.5 miles to and from campus, but it’s also really invigorating.  It’s nice because my commute doubles as my exercise for the day!  I come home really sweaty and gross, but I don’t care - I’m not really trying to impress anyone, lol.

The wedding was beautiful.  It was a very casual, laid back wedding and we all really enjoyed the four days we spent together.  I almost went parasailing, but chickened out at the last minute; damn my anxiety!  Maybe I’ll try it another time :).  We also tried out a few bars in HH - interesting stories that I wish I could share, but some things are just better left unsaid.  Just think - what normally happens on a night with lots of drinking and college students?

Hunter will not stop GROWING.  He’s over 30 lbs now and Tom and I both think he grew during the four days we were gone for the wedding.  Apparently he was quite the socialite at our friends’ houses.  He’s kind of a handful right now - moreso than before - because if we say no, he barks and runs around so we’ll chase him.  I wish I knew The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan, on a personal level.  He’d be on my cell phone speed dial!

Time to do some reading and prepare for my morning class.  I’ve still got to make my lunch, too.  I’ll leave you with a sweet picture of Romeo and Hunter (I really caught them like this, it was not posed).

Many blue screens, two reinstallations of Windows XP Professional, another blue screen and driver updates later, I have my computer working again.  It has been one HELL of a weekend for me and my Dell Inspiron 600m.  I spent about 4 hours total chatting with a Dell representative.  The first reinstallation wasn’t a completely clean reinstall, so we had to start over.  Then this morning, I received the exact blue error screen that I was receiving in the very beginning, when this entire problem began.  After all that, it seems that the only thing that needed to be done was update the drivers (which I could’ve done on my own).  After researching this problem, I was convinced it had something to do with the wireless card on my laptop; sure enough, it was.  Too bad it took four Dell people to finally pinpoint the problem (despite me asking about the wireless card drivers in the very beginning).  Anyway, I’m just glad everything is back to normal.  It’s nice to have a fresh clean slate of a computer to work with, too! I have everything working and looking the way that I want.

So, is this tropical storm going to affect my first week of my senior year in college?  I hope not.  I’ve had enough of a break.  I’m ready to go back to school and focus on something.  Four hours of work a day isn’t enough to keep me busy.  I’ve decided to drop my ASL 3 class; as badly as I want to take the class, I feel like 16 credits (one of which is Business Finance - one of the hardest classes to take at UF) is too much.  I need all the other classes for my major or minor, so ASL 3 is really the only one that I can drop.  I can always take it in the spring, though (when all my other ASL friends are taking it).  Tom and I are keeping an eye on this storm and if need be, we’ll go home to help our parents prepare.  If not, we’ll just make sure we have gas in the cars and cash and we’ll be set here in our apartment.

I made the BEST spaghetti sauce over the weekend.  I used a jar of spaghetti sauce that I bought from the store and added to it - ground beef, chopped onion, minced garlic, baby portabello mushrooms, spinach, italian seasoning and pepper.  It turned out really nicely and we had enough for leftovers.  I ended up having an old friend over for dinner last night and that’s what we had (along with a salad and homemade garlic bread).  It was a yummy dinner!

Hunter is growing so much.  I really love having him despite how difficult he can be to control sometimes.  We took a long walk earlier and he did so great; didn’t pull on the leash and wear himself out, didn’t freak out at cars, and best of all, didn’t stop completely when he got afraid of random noises.  Now that Tom is working in the office full time again (he was out doing field work the last couple weeks), we’re getting serious about looking into puppy classes.  Tom will do that (since I have school and work to worry about) and I am hoping it will really help him bond with Hunter.  Hunter listens to me a little better than he listens to Tom, and I think it’s because Tom is at work and I spend more time at home with him.  Speaking of Hunter, I really need to post some new pictures of him!

My list of things to get done today is waiting for me, so I better end this right here.  I hope you all have a wonderful week! :)

For the past several weeks (when he’s not working in the field), Tom has spent Wednesday evenings playing golf with his work buddies.  At first it threw me off - was I still responsible for dinner for BOTH of us?  Just me?  What about him helping out with Hunter in the evenings?  Eventually, though, I just learned to go with the flow (it wasn’t really a big deal to begin with, but it stressed me out a LITTLE because I really enjoy cooking for both of us) and let him play golf with his new friends.  Afterall, interacting with the people you work with is so important (at least I think so) because it tends to make the work day go by that much faster.  Of course, all he talks about when he gets home is golf: golf balls, golf bags, golf gloves - you name it and he’s talking about it!

This morning was my third attempt at getting Hunter to enjoy the dog park.  This time, I chose another dog park that we had never been to.  It’s a little bit of a drive, but I didn’t mind because I thought, “Hey, my dog will be getting lots of exercise and it’ll be fun for both of us!” 

Not.

As soon as we got there and I unhooked Hunter’s leash, he started crying.  He wouldn’t concentrate on getting the rope that I was throwing; instead he would run towards it and then past it (something he doesn’t do when we’re playing at home).  I’d like to add that there was no one around us - no people, no dogs, no cars.  There was absolutely nothing to be afraid of!  I forced us to stay there for 20 minutes and coaxed Hunter from one end of the park to the other.  I thought that maybe he’d calm down and enjoy it if he had enough time to adjust.  After the 20 minutes though, there was no improvement, so I drove us home.

He’s much better on walks; not as afraid of cars (he still stops and stares when they go by, but nothing like it used to be).  This behavior is only at the dog park and it gets worse if another dog is around (even though he has experience with other dogs now).  I’m at my wits end because I want him to enjoy the dog park; as he gets older he’s going to NEED to go to the dog park because he’ll be too big to run around in the yard. 

What do I do in this situation?  Any dog training advice?

Thank goodness we’re not limited to one computer in this household!  I have my laptop and Tom has his desktop computer, so if one breaks down, we have another to fall back on. 

To make a long (and boring) story short, I have to reinstall Windows on my laptop.  I may ask Tom to do it or I may just wait until I can go home so my stepdad can work on it for me.  I’m not sure yet.  I’ve yet to back everything up (which, thankfully, I can do in Safe Mode without the blue screen of death popping up).

I’m seriously looking into purchasing a new laptop.  The only thing that is holding me back is a) money, b) the fact that I just got a 3 year warranty on my current laptop as a Christmas gift, and c) I have no idea what manufacturer I want to go with.  A few people have suggested Macs, but I don’t know if I’m willing to completely switch over to something so different from a PC. 

I’ve got today and tomorrow’s class and then a two week break until August 25 when school starts back up again.  I need to post my schedule - it’s perfect!  Better walk Hunter before I go, ciao!