Happy Hump Day!

This is been one eventful "hump day", or at least for me (and compared to my life over the past week and a half). I woke up at a bright and early 6:15am so I could get on the road and be in Bainbridge by 8:00am. My Bailey Brown had surgery yesterday to have an infected ingrown hair (located near her nose) cut out and I was making the drive to Bainbridge to be there as soon as the vet's office opened so I could bring her home ASAP. I drove up there yesterday morning, at the same time, to drop her off. The whole ride up there Tuesday morning Bailey would find some way to touch me - she would put her head on my leg or put her head on top of my right hand as I drove or if I petted her leg, she would turn her body around my arm so she would be "hugging" my arm. It was as if she knew what was coming and didn't want to leave my side. It was so sweet and it broke my heart to be the one to drive her and drop her off to what I'm sure was not a good day in the life of Bailey Brown. Her vet, Dr. Cliff Bailey (ironic and funny that her vet is "Dr. Bailey"), is located in Bainbridge, right across the street from Joseph's old office, which was very convenient when Joseph worked in Bainbridge. But now that he works and practically lives in Tallahassee, its a bit of a drive but it is very worth it because he is the best! When she was a wee pup (before I ever knew her), she got parvo a week after Joseph brought her home to live with him and according to Joseph, Bailey was pretty much a goner. The only reason she is with us today and has lived a happy, normal life is due to Dr. Bailey who nursed Bailey back to health. So while it may take me an hour to drive Bailey to her doctor, I gladly will do it because I know she is in good hands! So back to today, once Bailey rounded the corner and saw me, she came running and it just melted my heart! She jumped up on me and gave me kisses and would not move away from the front door, practically begging me to take her home and not leave her again! Last night without her in my apartment was very weird. I didn't realize how much I would miss her and how happy I would be to have her home again! I love her so! :)

After driving 2 hours to and from Bainbridge, I came home to finish up one of my homemade Christmas presents (I'll reveal it once the gift is given just in case this person is a reader). Then after lunch, I headed to the "Prosser Compound" to help Ashley with some of her holiday baking and take care of some of my own. Once I got there, I got started on my "Rolo-pretzel treats" and Ashley started her chocolate chip cookie batter, or so she thought. When Ashley and I went to Sam's back in November, she bought the biggest bag of chocolate chips I've ever seen for her holiday baking, which coincidentally fit 4 different recipes on the back of the bag, including the famous Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, which we use every year to bake cookies and have for as long as I can remember. However, Ashley accidentally started following the Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip cookie recipe instead of the regular chocolate chip recipe and instead of following it for a single batch, she had doubled it because she was planning on making lots and lots of cookies She had gotten as far along as beating the ingredients together, about to add the butter and eggs and then the flour mixture (for any bakers out there, you know at what stage I'm talking about). At first, I wasn't really worried because I thought how different can the dough recipes be for the two different cookies? Well, apparently there are a few differences in the amounts of flour and sugar and a couple other items. So then we sat down to figure out the ratio of ingredients to what we already had to convert it to the chocolate chip recipe and we came up with multiplying everything by 3 1/3! Haha! It was a HUGE batch of cookie dough! In the midst of our cookie dilemma, Kerry, Ashley and Nate's sister-in-law, brought over little baby Eastton! I haven't seen him since my jewelry party in November and he's even cuter than I remembered! We got the chance to watch him for a couple hours to give mom a chance to get some Christmas wrapping done. First he showed me how strong he is, pulling himself upright while sitting in Ashley's lap while holding her hands and then rolling over! Then he showed me his acid reflux! Poor Eastton! He started spitting up after Ashley fed him, which luckily for me ended up in my hair! Oh well, I was planning on washing it tonight anyways! Eastton also loves to be held and of course started throwing a fit everytime we tried to lay him in his seat or on his blanket on the floor. Oh well, more time for me to love on him :)

Around 6:30, I started packing up and came home. And as some of you know, I have been admiring Tamara's white moose, which she got from Lowe's months ago when they put out their holiday decorations. Here he is:

I, of course, hate buying decorations full-price because I know after a few weeks, it'll go on sale, especially after the holiday. Well, then I realized it would be a great addition to my holiday collection and couldn't live without it. So I searched both Lowe's, in-store and online, in town for the moose to no avail. Then I tried looking at other locations nearby - all sold out. Just my luck! So then I found the same moose, only brown:

So I thought WWCTD - what would crafty Tamara do - and consulted my favorite DIY-er, Tam, about my options. After getting pumped up and going online once I got home tonight to purchase my brown moose, which was in stock according to lowes.com, it would not let me buy it! So then I called in reinforcements and brought Joseph in on the mission. We called the Valdosta store, where the supposed moose was in stock. Well, they wouldn't let us buy the moose over the phone and said we had to have a Tallahassee store "ICB" it to them and we would have to pick it up from there. So then we called the Tallahassee store and they wouldn't let us do it. Boo! Then Joseph did some searching and it said that a Jacksonville store had "limited availability" of the white moose - my prize moose! So we called the Jax store and they couldn't "find" the moose. Argh! After this, Joseph had about enough and was going straight to the top dogs - corporate! We found a 1-800 number online and thats when the fun began! As soon as Joseph got on the phone with a customer service representative, he turned on the charm. He started off telling Elizabeth, the customer service rep, that no one was able to help him tonight but he could tell by the sound of her voice that she would be the one who could help him and be his Santa (and I am not making this up - those are the exact words he used! I had to leave the room because I was laughing at how cheesy he was being)! Then he went on to say that his "little girl" really wanted the moose and he needed her help to get his little girl what she wanted. Then Elizabeth accepted the challenge, saying "Oh I can do that!" and began searching for our moose! She found 3 in Albany, GA and immediately called the store to make sure they did, in fact, have the moose in stock and if they would be able to ship it to us. After a few minutes on hold and several checks from Elizabeth to make sure we were still there and didn't mind holding a few minutes longer, we were finally connected to the Albany store to give them our address and complete the transaction! SCORE! Before Joseph was connected to the Albany store, he asked if he could speak to Elizabeth's supervisor and gave her an outstanding rating for helping us and being so nice! So hopefully in about a week or so, I will have my moose to display proudly next year at Christmas time! :)