It was a beautiful fall day, so we took Riesling to the dog park. She usually starts out running along the fence line:

After she’s burned a bit of energy we move her to the small dog area, where she starts out with a search of the perimeter:

Note the black mini schnauzer rapidly approaching Riesling - he’s also a rescue!

After securing the fence line she takes up a spot on the highest point:

When she’s finally tired out she finds us to take her home:

On average, about 45 minutes at the dog park makes for a very happy Riesling!

Apparently.

(whatcha looking at mama?)

Here I am just minding my own business, looking up B&B information for our upcoming trip to Buffalo later this month, when WHAM! All of a sudden a sleepy dog is sitting ON my computer keyboard. And I will give her credit, when she jumps, she absolutely commits to it.

I have since shooed her off and she is now curled up in the dark guest bedroom on a pile of clothes we need to donate.

We had to turn the heat on for the first time in months when we returned from Florida as the house was a cool 62 degrees in the middle of the afternoon. Eric is the designated “pilot-light-turner-on-er” as I refuse to crawl under the house because it looks like this…

The furnace is in the middle of the house, which I’m sure helps the heating process, but it also means one has to crawl for a bit to turn the darn thing on. I’ve been under there exactly once to help Eric clear out some decaying wood that was left under there along with about a case of empty beer cans. Ick.

When we first moved in, it was March and the house was freezing, I think it was about 50 degrees inside. For some reason, the previous owners let the pilot light go out under the house, but we had no idea and just thought the heat wasn’t working. In a mild panic, we called them and they casually told us what to do. Easier said than done… poor Eric had to light the furnace with a taper candle and a flashlight in the dark. I’ve since bought him an automatic lighter. :)

We have an adjustable thermostat so that we can save money by keeping the house a little cooler during the day. This means that I have to wear socks and pup finds other ways to keep warm.

This past Saturday, pup and I attended SchnOctoberFest to support the wonderful folks who made Riesling’s rescue possible. This year I donated a custom pet portrait as a raffle prize and I was delighted to see a whole bunch of tickets in my tupperware container. :)

(I actually won the raffle right next to mine!)

We also entered the longest ears contest and Riesling took first prize among the schnauzers. Measuring her was a bit of a challenge, but we determined her ears to be four inches long!

Not only did we have a lovely time reconnecting with everyone from the rescue, including her foster mom, Kathleen, but we won raffle prizes as well. Eric and I have a free movie and dinner to look forward to and pup has a variety of new toys… including a florescent orange gecko that she has very much taken to.

(Photo taken by the lovely Rhonda) 

Today while Eric and his parents were scoping out the farmer’s market, I spent an hour sweating in the hot sun painting with chalk on the ground for groundSPARK, a street painting festival in downtown Raleigh.

There was supposedly a record number of participants and it was certainly crowded enough!

Here I am demonstrating my flexibility by adding more highlights to Riesling’s eyebrows while not stepping all over my painting. :)

See the finished product on Flickr!

Although I was absolutely soaked by the end, I had a wonderful time and we saw a lot of beautiful works.

It made the beer sampler at the Flying Saucer even more earned. :)

The beauty (and the problem) with online shopping is that you wake up in the morning and have no plans whatsoever to buy anything and then your husband sends you a link from SlickDeals about Amazon’s discounted light fixtures and four days later you have a new chandelier for your dining room.

For example.

The good news is that we badly needed to replace this fixture, it’s pretty ugly. But we never go in there except to lift weights and mix drinks so spending a small fortune on a new light was at the bottom of our list of spending ideas.

The current chandelier…

(The Phaaaaaaantom of the Operaaaaa is theeeerrrreee, insiiiiiide your miiiiind…)

Eric’s parents will be here on Friday and I’m sure his dad will be delighted to help us hang the new light (*waving hello*), because otherwise it will sit in the box until we can scrape together some time to do it ourselves. Which may be never.

At least Riesling got a kick out of the box it came in. :)

So, I mentioned a week ago that I decided to donate a custom portrait to the schnauzer rescue fundraiser in a few weeks. I also decided to have business cards made up with my latest painting…

I plan to give these out at the dog park, my dog groomers, my vet, and at the schnauzer meetups. With any luck (and some perseverance), I’ll have some more dogs to paint!

Please spread the word, there’s more info and pricing information here.

Also, visit my art blog to see the process behind the toy fox terrier, Haus, painting.

Two months ago, I received an email from a woman who found me through the NCSR rescue page for pup. She wondered if I did pet portraits and I truthfully said I hadn’t in the past, but was planning on doing one of Riesling this summer.

I just finished it today!

I throughly enjoyed this experience and already have another pet portrait in the works. I also offered to donate a pet portrait to raise money for the NCSR at SchnOctoberfest 2007 later this fall.

Read more about my painting process on my art blog.

Oddly enough, we didn’t put the rope on her - she flipped it onto her back and walked around like this for a few minutes…

Our one year anniversary of Riesling’s rescue was on August 12, while we were on vacation. A whole year. She’s such a huge part of our life now and at the moment is curled up next to me seeking protection from the faint thunder in the distance.

Eric and I had discussed getting a dog for years, but we figured we traveled too much and never followed through with the plan. When we moved to NC, I found a local schnauzer rescue and since that was one of the top hypoallergenic breeds on our list (I am, unfortunately, allergic to cats and dogs), I downloaded an application.

The extensive application sat on my computer desktop for several weeks and finally I took an hour and filled everything out.

The approval process took a few weeks because they called all three of our references and conducted a home visit. The volunteers who run the rescue spend much of their time (and money) to rescue these dogs, so they want to make sure they are placing them in an appropriate home from the beginning!

Once we were approved, I scanned Petfinder.com daily to see what new dogs came in and after only a week or so, “Tinkerbell” showed up…

She was only 13.5 lbs and scruffy as heck when the rescue picked her up. She lived with a 90-year-old smoker whose family put him in a nursing home and turned pup in because no one wanted her. She had just turned 5 years old.

She was at the upper range of the age we wanted but honestly? Her ears sold me. :) Both Eric and I emailed each other about her at nearly the same time, so we set up an appointment to meet her the following week.

She was just about the friendliest schnauzer I’d ever met and we fell in love with her instantly. Her foster mom, Kathleen, wanted to give her a little more time to recover from her spaying and hernia surgery, so we waited a few days to come back and get her the day after my birthday.

Having a pet when you are a kid and then having one as an adult (when you have to do everything) is very different. I’ll admit, it was tough at first. We had to develop a schedule and teach her the rules, but even though we only had her for a week before we had to take a sudden trip to Chicago, I missed her while we were gone.

Today, Riesling is a healthy and quite active 18.5 lbs. We are convinced that she is solar powered, as she rises with the morning sun and doesn’t slow down until the sun sets. Thank you, Ries, for making a wonderful addition to our family. (Even if you drive me crazy barking at squirrels, postal trucks, etc.)