Happy One Year, Casa Crustante! A Year in Review.

Today marks ONE YEAR since moving into our little Casa Crustante.   It took us 80 days of renovation to make this little home habitable, along with plenty of tears, a mountain of paperwork, and gallons of alcoholic beverages.

It looked like this:

With a shed like this:

An interior like this:

Then we gutted it.  Seriously gutted it.

But soon, the transformation was complete.  Our little foreclosed house evolved.  

The shed transformed into something less hideous:

The kitchen ended up being something worth cooking in:

Once we moved in, the momentum continued.  A chicken coop was started.

 And finished.

Baby chicks were hatched.

Those chicks quickly grew up.

A corgi was added to the family.

A boat started.

Not a bad first year of home ownership.  Onwards!

A Cat Crap Palace.

The puppy, though cute, is a bit of a handful.  He's nearly 6 months old now, full of vim and vigor, and he manages to get into all sorts of mischief.   He's into the usual doggy sports- i.e. digging through my vegetable garden and eating cat litter.

Yes.  He eats cat litter.  With a side of kitty roca.  With gusto.  Imagine my joy upon finding him zooming through the house with a fresh cat turd firmly held in his mouth.   Oh, there were words, all right.  And the requisite call to my husband "WHY DID YOU WANT A $#(@ing PUPPY!?"

Thankfully, I use a wheat cat litter, so at least I know that it's somewhat edible and it's (hopefully) not going to impact his intestines.  But there's something REALLY annoying about having to stash away the litter box every time I let the dog roam the house. 

Something had to be done.  And without further ado, I present to you the Cat Crap Palace in its currently unfinished glory.  Sturdy (extravagant 2x4 construction), an entrance only big enough for the cat, and complete with plenty of ventilation,  I'm really hoping this will work.
 

 And as it sits now, with a bit of primer. 

Guess how much I'd rather be working on my boat?!

He'd better grow up to be a water dog!

Pork, meet Flanders. Flanders, Pork.

I introduced our cardigan welsh corgi pup to pork.

I think he liked it!

More Cardigan Welsh Corgi Action!

 

I haven't managed to get a single thing done this week.

There's Someone I Want You to Meet

He's coming home in 4 weeks. :)

The Weekend Draws Nigh!

The weekend is nearly upon us! Let there be much rejoicing.

The weekend menu:

Bridal Shower.
Procure beer brewing supplies.
Brew beer.
Look at puppies.

Puppies. Yes, the time has come.

So, the husband has been drooling over corgis for as long as I can recall. Back in our college days (7 years ago!) I remember him pointing out a corgi in an anime called Cowboy Bebop. That was the first time he had mentioned his strong desire to have one.

Now we have a little land, with a fully fenced front yard, and as a stay-at-home housewife, I've got the time to deal with a little bundle of fluff.

My instincts tell me to adopt- as always- but as Val really, really wants to experience puppyhood of a specific, rather hard to find breed (he is especially fond of cardigan corgis- the ones with the tails), that would be a challenge. So, we're doing the next best thing and supporting a responsible breeder.

So keep your fingers crossed for us! I hope the breeder likes us, the puppies love us, and we all end up with the perfect match.

And in case you need puppy therapy, check out this adorable cardigan welsh corgi:

Dachshund + Firepower

One of my favorite sites lately is Animals Being Dicks, a great compilation of animated gifs full of mischief from a variety of non-human species.

And this really takes the cake! Really glad nobody was hurt in it, that could have ended very badly!

Hope you survived Independence Day with the same number of limbs you started it with!

A Dog's Day

My brother and his wife have a pug named Dexter.

He just turned one.

He's a doll. In a wrinkly pug-ish sort of way.

He loves our toy fox terrier, Abby. However, I'm not sure she feels the same way.

Happy (Early) Pawlidays

Look - My newly dark plum nails are making a cameo here!

We ventured to our friends' home this evening to drop our doglet off for the weekend. They had some holiday outfits for their kittens lying around (their cats* tolerate them, amazingly!).

...and so we decided to deck out Abby with some festive attire, too. She's about the same size as the kittens.
This is what happens when you say the T-R-E-A-T word:

And then things got silly. Swear to god, this hasn't been manipulated
.
I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Such a ridiculous picture. It has been a lovely evening. I guess I should finish packing to Sacramento, eh?

*All cats shown here are considered "Good Cats." These types of cats are rare and hard to find. Do not assume that all other cats are forgiven for their heinous behavior and crimes against my furniture and sleep patterns