Keeping up appearances.......

Dolphin1

Honey_Bear wrote: »

It's lovely to see you joining in Dolphin and have someone else to play with! Yay! I love your goals and the amazingthing about setting them is that although I don't sometimes make my target 100%, the discipline of knowing I've made the commitment means that the improvement over time is steady and well worth the effort.

Thanks for the welcome Mrs HB. Not sure that my goals are that challenging really (except for the cake one obviously) but thought it best to start off slowly for Marvellous May. I can always up the ante next month.

So nice to see the progress you have made with the new dog already. :T You have such a lot of patience!

Dolphin1

Ok, so day one of the challenge went well...

1) No chocolate, sweets or biscuits eaten.
2) No cake eaten.
3) Light off at 11.15pm so not quite 11pm but earlier than normal by at least half an hour.
4) No meal planning done yet but still intending on doing it on Friday/Saturday for next week.
5) No spends on other people.

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1, meal planning is something that seems tricky to begin with but the way I cracked it was twofold:

1. Make a note of all of the meals that you have had over the past few days or weeks that you can remember, would like to eat again and wouldn't mind cooking again (somethings are just too much faff); and
2. Have a regular generic meal plan. Ours is roast on Sunday, leftovers on Monday, vegetarian on Tuesday, fish on Wednesday, whatever we can think of on Thursday or if we eat out at all during the week it's the meal I don't plan for ie wild card night, fish chips and peas on Friday and pizza on Saturday. Once I'd worked that out it turned into a relatively straightforward job each week. I know some people start by which carbohydrate they're going to have each night, potato, pasta, rice etc. Good luck with it.

Dolphin1

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Dolphin1, meal planning is something that seems tricky to begin with but the way I cracked it was twofold:

1. Make a note of all of the meals that you have had over the past few days or weeks that you can remember, would like to eat again and wouldn't mind cooking again (somethings are just too much faff); and
2. Have a regular generic meal plan. Ours is roast on Sunday, leftovers on Monday, vegetarian on Tuesday, fish on Wednesday, whatever we can think of on Thursday or if we eat out at all during the week it's the meal I don't plan for ie wild card night, fish chips and peas on Friday and pizza on Saturday. Once I'd worked that out it turned into a relatively straightforward job each week. I know some people start by which carbohydrate they're going to have each night, potato, pasta, rice etc. Good luck with it.

Thanks Mrs HB, very useful. :T

Funnily enough, I have kept a record of all of the evening meals that we have had for the last couple of months and I have found that I regularly repeat meals. I think that's the problem though, I keep returning to the old faithfuls as it's quick and easy so we never have anything different.

Realistically, sticking to the old faithfuls will have to continue but I am going to try and build one new meal in to the plan each week for a bit of variety. :think:

HappyNow

PinotGrigio41 wrote: »

Way to go Happy !! Well done you, what an amazing achievement ! xx :T:T

Pinot! Lovely to see you and well done on getting your own debt down so low (well, low by the 'class of 2011' standards ). I hope you and Mr P and the girls are all doing well. I was thinking about you just the other day when I served up 'cowboy beans'. Truly delicious they were too! x

HappyNow

Honey_Bear wrote: »

we all need something to look forward to and you need to have something lovely to share with Mr Happy, especially as he's going to be head down/bottom up working for the forseeable future.
What a great phrase, one I shall remember :rotfl:. It's disappeared now, but for ages, when I googled my own name & town (erm... everyone does that, not just me, right?), the first thing that always came up was a photo of Mr H's @rse, working away up a ladder. Not his head or any other body-part, just his @rse. It was clothed, I should add, but it was such a funny pic and made me giggle every time! Bit of a fluke shot too because he's terrified of heights. He always said that photo made him look 'manly'

Mr Bear has an absolute gem of a mantra that keeps us going when we're working (usually individually) on a project which gets us through every time: 'Everything feels like failure in the middle.' We're now so utterly convinced of it's veracity that we've got to the point where we now know when we've reached the mid-point, because it does, always, feel like failure. (I've just googled it to see if Churchill was the originator and my quoting it appears on the first page of search results - on the Flylady thread two years ago!)
:rotfl::rotfl: I like that phrase too. Safe to say, I'm financially in the middle right now!

Honey_Bear wrote: »

Second attempt to get the aquasorb today;
I'm worried now that I've given it too big a build-up and you're going to buy one and wonder what all the fuss was about!

1. I was right about grooming him. He's fine as long as I use the bristle side of the brush, but the minute I was to actually start with the business end of it he's on his back saying 'I submit, enough, stop, please.' Back to basics and happiness I think, with one stroke in 10 with the effective side to build up his confidence. I agree, there's no rush, and as you use a professional groomer maybe there's no need to bother with it at all if he doesn't like it?
2. No Flying. The floors need attention but I haven't got any energy. With at least 10 in for something to eat tomorrow night I'm going to have to do a bit, even if I make sure the brightest lights aren't on. (Sneaky, moi?) Your kitchen sounds massive! The previous owner of our house told me that the room which is now our kitchen was, many years ago, where the pigs used to be slaughtered. Slightly off-putting for a vegetarian!

Honey_Bear wrote: »

The dog is doing amazingly well all things considered and I'm not upset or disappointed by anything he's done so far. He's gentle and friendly towards everyone, tail waggy, happy, people-orientated and just plain good. The two tiny tinkles were obviously him making his mark and both occured in the rooms where he spends least time; he's clearly trying to work out what the rules are here and coping as best he can and it was only a splash both times.

He's learning that no matter how excited he is barking means that all the good things stop instantly and he has to wait until I feel like interacting with him again. He's already realised that what I expect is a dog sitting quietly so he's doing his best to be good

I have relented on the food front. For five days I've tried everything I can think of to get him to eat dog food and he is as resistant as a dog can be. In rescue he picked at the diet food apparently and he won't touch it here, and the only crackcrunching of it was the cat. I happen to have three different varieties of wet food around and chap*ie biscuits, all of which he has eaten half-heartedly once and then refused. I reckon it's the real symptom of his stress. As he arrived with a slightly upset tummy and yesterday was Day 5 it was time to change tactics.

The first really great sign of change was that he accepted a yoghurt pot and went mad trying to get all of it out; I make yoghurt so it's live and relatively fresh, so full of great bacteria. Within eight hours his output had stablized and this morning it was as healthy as I could ever have hoped. I also cooked him some fresh chicken and rice last night and he ate like a starving thing (which of course he was) so this morning breakfast was yoghurt covered cha*pie biscuits with chicken and rice. He ate a goodly amount, I'm pleased to say. When I'm very stressed I lose my appetite so I'm working on the basis that after at least five weeks in rescue of not wanting to eat and five days here of not finding the food appetising but being as well-behaved as he can be, he deserves a fullish stomach that feels settled.

As soon as I can get some longlife milk the slow-cooker will be going 24 hours a day because I need to build up the stocks to fill a couple of kongs to freeze. I've found this dog's achilles heel and I am going to crate train him as soon as I can now that I know what he reallly loves.

I skipped the brushing this morning, washed his face and ran my hands up and down his front legs for slightly longer than he would have liked but he coped manfully. That's massive progress for him, so all in all I'm rather chuffed. I need him to practice going to the vet tomorrow because he's due a vaccination on Friday and I don't want him upset by that experience. Fingers crossed.

Aw Honey, he sounds lovely. To be behaving so well after his last few weeks really shows his character and I think you've found a great dog there. I think he should be allowed to eat whatever food suits him - at least for a while - because after all he's been through recently he really doesn't need hunger adding to his woes. Or brushing come to that. I am also very impressed that you make your own yogurt.

HappyNow

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Not sure that my goals are that challenging really (except for the cake one obviously) I can always up the ante next month.
WHAT?? You're giving up chocolate AND biscuits AND cake!! How much more challenging can it get?

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Ok, so day one of the challenge went well...

1) No chocolate, sweets or biscuits eaten.
2) No cake eaten.
3) Light off at 11.15pm so not quite 11pm but earlier than normal by at least half an hour.
4) No meal planning done yet but still intending on doing it on Friday/Saturday for next week.
5) No spends on other people.

Well done Dolphin . Of course, old hands like me and Honey know that Day One tends to be the easiest. It's the 6th today and I have just eaten the other half of yesterday's chocolate biscuits and a bowl of ice cream .

I've decided I'm definitely going to have a go at meal planning in June though. It's all a bit random at the moment and we don't always eat that healthily. We could probably cut the supermarket bill a bit more too. Hmm. I might even start on 15th May as it's payday.

Honey_Bear

Dolphin1 wrote: »

Funnily enough, I have kept a record of all of the evening meals that we have had for the last couple of months and I have found that I regularly repeat meals. I think that's the problem though, I keep returning to the old faithfuls as it's quick and easy so we never have anything different.

Realistically, sticking to the old faithfuls will have to continue but I am going to try and build one new meal in to the plan each week for a bit of variety. :think:

Interesting, because I think quite a lot of people meal plan so that they find introducing new meals into their routine but that wasn't my motivation in the end. To be honest, I meal plan because I realised I was going down to the kitchen to cook in the evening not knowing what it was going to be and then having to cobble something together at the last minute. I then realised I was worrying needlessly during the day about what to cook that evening, so I decided that the generic plan would at least mean that decision was already made. So, when salmon's on special offer we buy and freeze it and then if it's Wednesday I at least know whatever I cook, the meal is planned around salmon. The recipe can be varied around that, if you see what I mean, so OH might make a noodle-based stir fry, whereas I, last night, made oven-roasted veg (in preparation for tonight) and then served it with couscous.

We love our evening meal; it's the only time of day we settle down and focus entirely on each other so the food part of it is a big part of it, rather than just fuelling-up as it is to some people.

Having a record of what you've already had means you're way ahead of the game! Plagiarizing your own work is fine and then editing it to provide something more interesting if that's what you want is easy, and it means the shopping list is much easier to write.

Well done on sticking to your goals; every day is a victory!

Honey_Bear

Actually, the real expression is 'head down bum up' but I thought the MSE wonks might have banned the word. We'll see - as I rather wish I could Mr Happy's famous photo but obvs not.

I googled myself a few years ago and found a letter I'd had printed in the Independent had been quoted by an MP in a debate on the health service!

Still haven't made it to P@H for the cloth - I was so short of time I didn't go in that direction in the end. I'm doing okay with the microfibre cloths at the moment but I need all the help I can get when it starts raining again and we run out of towels.

Your comments on grooming are my thoughts, too, but I think part of the problem with him is that he was frightened of all interventions that feel intimate to him while in rescue. The idea is to get him to be easier to handle, because when my vet spoke to the rescue vet it became clear that examining the dog's ears or legs or pretty much anything else is totally out of the question, which encompasses the needing to be sedated to have the matts cut out. My vet said that having behavioural issues like this can be just as serious and expensive as a health problem in an older dog and so it's a welfare and a financial issue. I don't know what he did to their groomer, but I suspect mine would have a problemette with being growled at, bitten or whatever, as well. He's coming on; I need to be patient and make it all fun and associated with happy things.

Honey_Bear

1. Face and running my hands up and down his front legs. He seemed fine with it. A bit of brushing, but less focussed on that to give him a bit of a break.
2. Nothing on insurance again. Oops.
3. Twinks and leftover cake doggie-bagged to OH after the cream tea on Monday scoffed. And cheese. Oops.
4. I've worked out I'm doing roughly an extra 5000 paces a day at breakneck speed because of the dog so I am totally exhausted by bedtime and sleeping fantastically well because of it; I just don't have the energy to read after about 10.30pm.
5. Emergency flying and dim lighting are the only way forward now. *shrug*