Friday, January 28, 2011

What's Wrong With This Picture!

Today has been wonderful. This morning after I cooked "Cousin Nancy's Huevos Ranchero's" for breakfast, I called Kinky to see if he wanted some, and then we went over to the Lodge and ate breakfast with him. During our fun breakfast, Kinky told us the funniest thing about what Albert Einstein once said when he was asked, "If he knew what weapon of destruction would be used if there was a World War III." And since I can't remember the exact quote exactly, Einstein answered, "I don't know about World War III, but I do know that if there were to be a World War IV—they'd use rocks." So, to say the least, we did a lot of laughing during our fun breakfast.

Ten minutes after we got back home, our super volunteers Eileen and Lisa showed up to walk our dogs, so I went outside to greet them and to my surprise, Lisa had brought us a tree, for Tony to plant, in honor of his brother Rex, and Eileen had brought a beautiful vase filled with beautiful flowers for us and their sympathy card was so sweet.

After we carried them inside the trailer Eileen said, "I think Sharon is coming out today too, so she can work with Annie Oakley." And then there was a knock on the door and it was Sharon Griswold, the incredible dog-whispering trainer of, "Rover Misbehaving?"! After a fun, but short visit, because they wanted to go outside and get to work, I invited them to come outside and take a peak to see my latest improvements to the Space Ship. As we walked to my new1976 motorhome I started telling them about the cabinets that I had painted.

"Wednesday afternoon, after I was finished with all of my paperwork and business, I decided to take down the kitchen cabinets and paint them and it turned out to be a lot more work than I had expected it to be," I said. "I numbered each cabinet as I took them down and then started taping off the six cabinet doors, which nearly took me an hour to do. Then I started carefully painting them. And it was hard, because I am not a good painter and can't paint a straight line."




Then we went inside the Space Ship and I loved the girls reactions! After everyone told me how much they loved my latest improvements I said, "Thank y'all. Now tell me, what's wrong with this picture?" And pointed to my newly hung cabinet doors on the passenger side of the van.

They looked at the cabinets and then asked, "What? They look beautiful." So I started laughing.

"It's a Nancy. I did it again. The second cabinet from the end is painted upside down!" And we all started laughing. "Because I forgot to number that one at the bottom, so I would know which was the top and bottom. And then I did the dumbest thing yesterday before I hung them back up. I decided to paint the inside doors lavender with spray paint and I covered up all of the numbers, so none of them are hanging in their right places..."

"They look fine, but all you have to do is repaint it," one of them suggested.

"Nope. No way. I will never do that again. I have accidentally turned my Space Ship into another "It's A Nancy" and who knows, maybe someday it could become valuable." After we all laughed about it, Lisa and Eileen took off to go walk some lucky dogs, while Sharon went to do some whispering-work and massage therapy on Annie. Here are a few pictures of Eileen and Lisa working with Sharon to help Annie settle down around other dogs and people—and it worked—thanks to Sharon Griswold!
Sharon with Annie "sitting and under control."


Lisa with Maggie and Eileen with LaToya 

Annie behaving herself and acting calm.

Sharon fixin' to massage Annie while whispering to her.

Around noon Eileen and Lisa took off to go eat lunch in Medina before heading back home to Kerrville, while Sharon and I drove Annie around in Kermit to see how she would react and Annie passed with flying colors! For the very first time since we got Annie—she was calm when we petted her, acted like Kermit was no big deal and we were totally thrilled about it! After a long talk with Sharon about Annie and her out-of-control issues and how to handle her progress, Sharon suggested that she come out every Friday to work with Annie and she is convinced, as we are, it won't take long for Annie to become the super dog that we know she is. Thank you, Sharon Griswold! Your magic worked miracles on Annie today!

This afternoon our last stop in Kerrville before going home, was to go by the music store, next door to Wolfmueller Books, because I am thinking about buying a dulcimer and taking some dulcimer lessons at Club Ed this Spring, because I love Club Ed and dulcimers and also because my great brother-in-law Ray (married to Cindy) is an incredible dulcimer player.

Our plan was to go to the music store first and then drop by and say hi to Sandy and Jon, but when we walked past Wolfmueller's opened door we heard Sandy say,"Hi, guys! Come on in."

"Hi, Sandy and Jon," Tony said. "We're going to the music store to see if they have any dulcimers on sale. We'll see y'all in a minute."

When we walked inside the crowded music store I saw my good friend Phil Houseal, the Director of Club Ed, and waved to him as he was paying for his purchase. Then we got to visiting. "You must be Tony! Cousin Nancy's husband," Phil said, as T. and him shook hands. "I want you to meet my friend Karen Shirer, she teaches guitar at Club Ed." After Karen and I shook hands I told Phil that I loved Club Ed and was thinking about signing up for their beginners dulcimer course and he was thrilled to hear it, even though he hasn't heard me play a dulcimer. "I really enjoyed reading your book, Cousin Nancy," Phil said. "And I want you to know that I have sent a copy of your book to my brother..." And I was thrilled to hear that, so I guess you could say, "That seeing Phil today was more than thrilling." You Rock, Phil!

After we left the music store empty-handed we went next door and had a fun visit with Jon and Sandy. 

Tonight I have posted a new, short youtube video that I made over eight years ago about some of the great dogs and animals that we have rescued and I hope that you will check it out. It starts out with the rescue ranch being in Utopia at my mini-ranch in 1998, where we started the rescue ranch, and then moving it here in 2002 and it basically ends with Jerry Jeff Walker, Kinky, Dwight Yoakam and me backstage at the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch benefit held at Bob Cole's Hill's Cafe in Austin. I have titled it Have I Told You...

Have a great evening and May The Force Be With Y'all, because I love you.

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