#this post is a joke. i have laminate floors my back would hate me for days.

[edgebug]

rip to him and everything but MY wife filled my house with chintz AND she keeps it real by fucking me on the floor

[redgillan]

Under Pastel Skies - 8

Sugar daddy!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Modern!AU Bucky doesn’t need anyone, especially not a sugar baby. He isn’t that desperate… but she smiles so sweetly and she’s endearingly awkward, and he’s so lonely. She’s an artist, a painter, the type of person who always puts others before herself. Throwing caution to the wind Bucky offers her a place to live, a place where she can finally paint whatever her heart desires. He doesn’t need much in return; a friend, a muse.

Word Count: 3,734

Warnings: none

A/N: If this chapter had a name it would be “me, you, and steve’. Also I know how infuriating they are, so oblivious and dumb but isn’t it the point of pining ;) Thanks for your patience!

Wannabe sugar daddies, don’t interact with this post.

Bucky’s cab pulled over to the curb in front of his building. He tugged on the lapels of his coat, pulling it tighter around him, and braced himself for the blast of cold air waiting for him on the other side.

He hated the cold, hated winter. It reminded him of the day he lost his arm, alone on that godforsaken mountain until Steve found him. But he could deal with the cold if it meant he’d find you on the other side of that door.

He knew you were home, you had texted him about an hour ago telling him that you had a surprise for him. It had made him smile. He’d hurried home, desperate to see you even though he’d seen you that morning.

He had it bad.

He’d been restless since the gala, unable to sleep without dreaming of you, your velvet dress in a heap on his bedroom floor, your scent lingering on his bed sheets. He would wake up bathed in sweat, on the edge of coming.

He would deal with it with an ice cold shower.

Bucky had accepted the fact that his feelings for you weren’t as innocent as they once were. He had always thought you were strong, full of life and a little awkward, but lately he’d been wanting to kiss you, touch you, feel your warmth against him.

He wanted it so badly it hurt.

He wouldn’t say he loved you. He certainly felt something for you but love was something foreign to him. Sometimes he wondered if his feelings were even real. He’d gone from living an extremely solitary life to spending every single day with you. It could have easily been a product of his loneliness and your soft spoken demeanour.

He had stopped counting the number of times he’d almost kissed you on the lips. The urge was always there, eating away at him, but he always caught himself at the last moment, his lips landing on your forehead, your cheek or your temple instead.  

“I’m home,” he shouted, closing the door behind him. He bent to untie his shoes and kicked them off while he unzipped his coat. “What’s the big surprise? Is it something we can eat?”

He hung his coat next to yours on the hook and walked down the short corridor that led to the kitchen. As he walked, he became suspicious of the silence that hung in the air. Slowly he peeked into the kitchen and found you in the company of someone he thought he’d never see again.

“Steve?”

“Not edible, sorry, Buck.”

Bucky’s face broke out into an instant smile, ear to ear and ecstatic. “Fuckin’ hell, Rogers, you look like a yeti.”

Steve barked out a laugh as he stepped forward and hugged him. He wrapped both his arms around Bucky, almost lifting him off the ground despite knowing how uncomfortable hugs made him feel. Chuckling, Bucky returned his hug with one arm; the only kind of hug he could give.

“I’m happy to see you.” Steve pulled back and held him at arm's length.

Bucky looked over Steve’s shoulder at you who were standing behind the kitchen counter, grinning at them. “Is that my surprise?” You nodded. “Ugh, I was kind of hoping for pizza honestly.”

“Asshole.”

“I’m joking, man.”

Steve returned to his seat and Bucky followed. You grabbed a mug from the cupboard and fixed Bucky a cup of coffee. He gave you a grateful smile.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with this punk on your own,” Bucky told you. “Did he give you a hard time?”

“Nah,” you said. “He was pretty sheepish. Also, I almost gave him a heart attack.”

Bucky burst out laughing as Steve’s face and neck flushed red. You told Bucky the story of how you and Steve met outside his apartment building. Bucky doubled over laughing when you made a pretty spot-on impression of Steve’s confused face. Steve rolled his eyes at your theatrics, a smile on his lips.

“In my defense, no stranger has ever screamed my name like that.”

“Oh, if the alley behind the church could talk, it’d call you a fucking liar, Steve.”

“First, shut up!” Steve jokingly pushed Bucky off his seat. “Second, I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.” That sobered you both up faster than a cold shower. Steve caught a furtive sideways glance between you and Bucky. “Did I say something wrong?”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” you replied with a smile. “I’m his, uh-” you trailed off and looked to Bucky for help but he was unable to speak. “I’m his roommate.”

“Oooh! Okay.”

Was that relief on Steve’s face? Bucky’s stare hardened. A muscle in his jaw jumped when Steve engaged you in a conversation. He asked you how long you’d been living with Bucky and if you liked the apartment. His tone was conversational but Bucky knew him like the back of his hand, he knew Steve was flirting with you.

“Are you staying for dinner?” you asked Steve. Bucky’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. You picked up the laminated meal plan from on the counter. “Creamed spinach and baked eggs.”

“Sounds great,” Steve agreed.

“You don’t like spinach,” Bucky grumbled under his breath.

“I’m not twelve anymore,” Steve countered with an arched brow. It made you laugh. “Besides I haven’t eaten a homemade meal in... wow, probably years.” Steve turned to you. “I don’t know if Bucky told you but I’m a landscape photographer. I live in the wild most of the year. It’s kinda like travelling by foot on an endless backpacking trip. It’s amazing but the food is disgusting.”

“Yikes!” You grimaced in sympathy. “Well, Bucky’s an amazing chef. I keep telling him we should open a restaurant together.”

You walked over to Steve and mock-whispered in his ear. “If we ask nicely, he’ll probably make us some garlic bread.”

That made Bucky smile. His first instinct was to answer with his usual ‘I’d do anything for you, angel’ but he couldn’t say that in front of Steve so he bit his tongue. He saw the disappointment in your eyes, as if you were expecting that usual answer too.

“I should go upstairs,” you said. “I have a painting to finish. Have fun, boys.”

Steve watched you go, then he shook his head and heaved out a sigh. He waited until he was sure you were out of earshot before he turned to Bucky.

“She’s quite something, isn’t she?” he said. “So, are you two...”

“We’re friends,” Bucky said.

Steve nodded. “Is she single?”

“As far as I know.”

Bucky’s jaw was clenched hard, the tendons in his neck looked like they were about to snap. He loved Steve like a brother but, goddammit, he wanted him to leave and never return. He balled his hand into a fist, feeling a visceral urge to punch something.

Yet, Steve seemed completely oblivious to Bucky’s turmoil. After living in the wild for several years, he was having trouble picking up on social cues.

“Do you think I should ask her out? I’m a bit rusty.” He ran his hand through his long hair, tugging at the strands. “I should get a trim first, right?”

“And a fucking shower,” Bucky grumbled to himself.

Steve didn’t hear him, he was too busy glaring at his hair in the big mirror on the wall.

Bucky tried to push away that nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was becoming harder to pretend this was all innocent. Not when he had to physically restrain himself from punching his oldest friend in the teeth. Steve was allowed to ask you out, Bucky had no right to be jealous.

And yet...

“How long are you stayin’?” he asked, eyeing Steve’s backpack. It wasn’t unusual for him to take Steve in when he was between assignments, but things were different now.

“A few weeks. Is it going to be a problem?”

“Listen, if it were just me, I’d let you stay,” Bucky replied. “But I’m not alone anymore. She doesn’t know you, you’re basically a stranger, and you’re already thinking of hitting on her. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable. This is her home.”

Steve blushed. “No, of course. I understand. I would never-”

“All I’m sayin’ is, she has the final say,” Bucky cut him off. “If she lets you stay, you can take the kids’ room.”

“You sure? It’s right next to her room. I could take the room upstairs, the one above the living room.”

“No, you can’t,” Bucky sighed. “It’s her painting studio.”

Steve stared at him with a suspicious frown. “Are you sure there’s nothing between you and her?”

“Yup, she’s just a friend.”

He tried not to fidget as he forced himself to hold Steve’s gaze. He kept his head high and acted as composed as he could even though his heart was jackhammering in his chest.

“Okay,” Steve drawled out, not entirely convinced. “If you say so.”

As Bucky expected, you allowed Steve to take the guest room, the one with the bunk-bed, though Steve told you that it wouldn’t be a problem. It also meant that he would be sharing your bathroom, and while it didn’t seem to bother you, it made Bucky really uncomfortable.

That evening, he sat down with you and Steve at the dinner table. He made sure Steve was seated at one end of the table, thinking that if you didn’t have him in front of you, you’d interact less. Bucky’s plan backfired pretty quickly. Steve had so many ‘I-lived-in-the-wild-for-ages’ stories that he monopolized the discussion –and your attention.

Bucky spent most of the night lost in his own thoughts, daydreaming, and only smiled when he caught your gaze. He snapped out of his haze when he noticed that he was alone at the dinner table. You and Steve were washing the dishes, talking and laughing.

He felt a pang of envy at the sight before him; it was supposed to be him and it scared him that someone could take you away from him. Then it hit him. He wasn’t special, you were kind and sweet with everyone. It was what had attracted him to you in the first place; your kindness, your fortitude and loyalty.

He couldn’t blame Steve for falling for you, too.

“Guys, I’m going to bed,” he said, standing on the landing between the two rooms.

You turned around mid-laugh and smiled warmly at him. “Good night, Bucky.”

“Sweet dreams, angel.” It slipped out. He didn’t even realize what he’d said, but Steve did.

Steve cocked a brow at his best friend’s retreating figure before he hung his head and let out a brief chuckle.

Over the next few days, Bucky’s mood didn’t improve. He was holding back, unable to reach out to you the way he used to. Steve was always there. Always.

In the morning Steve would come back from a run, sweaty and hungry, and wearing a shirt that was two sizes too small for him. He really laid it on thick, even by his standards, but you didn’t seem to mind.

In fact, you would often go out with Steve when Bucky was working on his new book. He took you to art shows, introduced you to important people and you visited art supply stores together, which annoyed Bucky more than he thought possible.

He felt stuck in a Garfunkel and Oates song, praying for Steve to go away.

I could've wished a thousand wishes for Steve to disappear.

Worst of all, Bucky was snappy with you. Especially after he inadvertently overheard you and Natasha talking about Steve. You painted a vivid picture of Steve’s ass. Figuratively of course, though Bucky couldn’t be certain that you didn’t have hundreds of notebooks filled with drawings of Steve’s ass.

“Hey, stranger.”

He looked up when you walked into his study carrying a tray with his breakfast –coffee and two slices of toasted white bread with butter and jam. You left the tray on a pile of papers and closed the door behind you.

“I was wondering about you, since you didn’t show up for breakfast.” You stood behind him and worked your fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and let you massage his scalp, the tension slowly leaving his body. “Something’s bothering you. I can tell.”

Bucky was so relaxed that his filter was non-existent. “Yeah, Steve’s bothering me. He stole my angel.”

“He can’t steal a mythical creature.”

“You’re my angel,” he half-moaned when you applied pressure to his scalp.

“I haven’t been feeling like your angel lately,” you said, giving him another squeeze before you let go of his head. You took a seat on the armchair close to his desk. “You’re... I don’t know. You’re moody and irritated, and I don’t know how to help you. I know you don’t like surprises, and Steve showing up out of nowhere and staying here was a pretty huge surprise. It’s difficult to cope with change but I think you’re acting a little weird. I swear, Bucky, sometimes you look at Steve like you want to kill him. Is it because we spend time without you?”

Bucky straightened up in his seat and took a deep breath, trying to find the right words. “Yeah, I guess. You two are having fun and I’m stuck here, alone.”

“You feel left out.”

“A bit,” he replied earnestly. “But if you like him, you should go for it. He’s a good-looking guy, he’s nice. He’s also a dumbass but that’s part of his charm.”

You laughed. “What? Why are you telling me this?”

“I heard you and Natasha,” Bucky explained, blushing. “You said, and I quote: ‘he's got an ass you can bounce quarters off of.’”

You burst out laughing. “Oh, Bucky.”

“What? I’m just sayin’ if that’s what you wanna do... I’ll give you a bunch of quarters.”

“No, thanks,” you laughed. “I’m good. I keep my quarters for something else.”

Bucky speared you with a suspicious look. “So you don’t think his ass is like a juicy peach.” He blinked. “Also a direct quote.”

“Oh, no, I stand by what I said. His ass is so-” you lifted your hands and made a squeezing motion “-tight.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” he rushed to say. “It’s not that impressive. Anyone can do squats. I do squats.”

“Fishing for compliments?” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. You looked at him with a fond smile. “Eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He reached for a slice of bread and bit into it, focusing his attention on his laptop screen. You got to your feet and walked to the door.

“Oh, um, by the way, how much of that conversation did you hear?” you asked, leaning against the half-open door.

“Not much, I left after the juicy peach thing.”

You hummed while nodding, your eyes cast down. When you looked up at him, a glint of something mischievous shone in your eyes. “You should have stayed a little longer,” you said enigmatically, your eyes roaming shamelessly over his body.

You raised your eyebrows and closed the door behind you, leaving Bucky speechless and confused. “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” he shouted, hoping you could hear him through the closed door. “Angel? Come back!”

Needless to say he didn’t write much after that.

Bucky made a conscious effort to stop being an asshat. A week later, he was in a better mood, and only glared at Steve twice –the first time when Steve put his hand on your knee and the second when he made a vaguely flirtatious remark.  

You let Steve and Bucky handle the dirty dishes, and Bucky was sure you did it on purpose. Your little smug smile said as much. Steve didn’t seem happy, he had never liked household chores and probably only did the dishes to spend time with you.

Bucky remembered Steve’s childhood bedroom; shades always down, his bed perpetually unmade, and a monster pile of clean and dirty clothes on his desk chair. He remembered Sarah’s exasperated sigh whenever she entered her son’s bedroom. It made him laugh.

Bucky had always been a neat person, something his mom always took pride in. ‘Look at my son who does his own laundry and sets the table without being asked. Look how well I raised him!’ After his accident, cleaning became an obsession, a way of controlling something that was uncontrollable.

“Did you get Sam’s text?” Steve asked, tossing the now-wet towel on the counter. “Emergency brunch tomorrow at 10.”

“Yeah, I know. Sam has a loose understanding of the word ‘emergency’. Last time he wanted to know if he could pull off a goatee. Not exactly an emergency.”

“Mhh,” Steve replied, thinking. “Are you coming?”

“Hell yeah,” Bucky chucked, “I wanna know what this new emergency is.”

Steve cast him a sideways glance while leaning his back against the kitchen counter. He mulled over something as he watched his friend clean the sink.

“So, um,” Steve started awkwardly. “I have a date tomorrow.”

Bucky’s hand faltered a bit. “Ah? With who?”

Steve looked toward your bedroom door and let out a very loud sigh. “A real-life angel, Buck.”

Bucky let go of the sponge and straightened up abruptly. He glared at Steve, hoping he’d heard him wrong. “What did you just say?”

“I have a date tomorrow night so you’ll have the place to yourself.” Steve smiled to his friend, blissfully unbothered. “I think I’ve been invading your personal space. You always look upset so I thought this would be a great idea. And I’ve been alone for so long, I need... relief you know.”

“Awesome,” Bucky replied, gritting his teeth.

“Great, I’m glad you see it that way,” Steve said, grabbing Bucky’s shoulder and squeezing gently. “See you tomorrow, Buck.”

He watched Steve walk to his bedroom and close the door behind him. Something inside him cracked, and he felt the overwhelming urge to throw something, watch it break into tiny pieces.

He took a deep breath and went in search of you instead. He found you upstairs in your studio, kneeling in front of a canvas, the handle of a pair of pliers in your mouth. It took you a few seconds to acknowledge his presence, and Bucky grinned when you let out a little shocked gasp.

“Did you have fun washing the dishes with Steve?” you teased, taking the pliers out of your mouth.

“I think we need a dishwasher.” He walked into the room and squatted down on his haunches next to you. “Whatcha doing?”

“I’m removing the staples on the stretcher bars so I can roll up the canvas and put it in a tube,��� you said. “This way they’re protected and I can carry them pretty easily. I have a meeting with a gallerist tomorrow. Apparently Steve knows her well. He mentioned my name and she wants to see my work.”

“That’s amazing, angel,” Bucky exclaimed. “How can I help?”

“I’m almost done. I just need to finish this one. Can you grab that sheet of plastic on the desk? We’ll wrap it in it and then we’ll use a piece of canvas for extra protection.”

He followed your instructions and made sure not to ruin your hard work. Once the canvas was in the tube, you placed it against the wall next to two similar tubes. Then you cleaned up and put away your tools.

“I don’t know if Steve told you but-”

“Yes, I know,” Bucky cut you off. “The date. It’s great. Honestly.”

“Yeah.” You lowered your gaze and studied your shaking hands, unable to meet his eyes. “Listen, I was thinki-”

“I really need some time to myself anyway,” he talked over you. “So it’s great, y’know? We all get what we want.”

“I guess,” you replied. “It’s getting late, I should go to bed.”

“Getting up bright and early tomorrow, uh?” The jovial tone in his voice sounded forced, even to his ears. You nodded mechanically. “Well, good night.”

“Good night.”

You both stood unmoving, staring at each other. Your eyes were asking for something, pleading with him, but he was too lost to understand. He was lost in his own feelings, remembering something Sam had said a while ago.

There’s an entire world between like and love.

And it was true.

Like was doing the dishes with you. It was laughing and screaming while you chased each other around the living room, using fairy lights as lassos. Like was booping your nose when you watched him cook dinner. It was speaking gibberish after watching a foreign film.

Love was that sweet agony that made him feel more alive than he had ever felt. It was letting you hold his hand and play with his fingers even though his nose felt itchy. Love was seeing you wrap his bow tie around your wrist like a bracelet. It was walking around a deserted planetarium with you.

Love was the colour of your favourite lipstick; Carter Red.

“Thanks for your help,” you said, interrupting his train of thought.

“My pleasure.” He tried to smile but it hurt.

Everything made sense now. His crankiness and irritability, his sudden aversion to his oldest friend, the one who had saved his life. The one who had asked you out on a date –or so it seemed.

“Sweet dreams...” he paused, considering, then used your name instead of your usual pet name.

He had no right to call you ‘angel’ anymore. Steve had asked you out first, he had asked Bucky multiple times if he was okay with that, and Bucky’s answers had always been a gritted ‘yes’.

The truth was, his epiphany didn’t change anything. He wouldn’t have asked you out because there was too much at stake: your friendship, your livelihood, your career, the well-being of your family. He couldn’t put you in an uncomfortable position, couldn’t ruin your hard work.

And he was terrified of these feelings. They were too new, too raw.

You pinched your lips together and nodded, avoiding his eyes. He clenched his jaw hard, hating the resigned look on your face. Why did you look so defeated? Without saying anything, you walked past him and left the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Part 9

[avocado-frog]

Forget-me-not. 4

Rating: T (see pinned post for additional tags) Warnings: Kidnapping implied. Innuendo-ish joke if you look hard enough Length: 2,000 Chapter title: 11/3/2018 Summary: Breaking and Entering

Leo stared at the photo in her hand again, laying upside-down on her bed.

She was sure she could figure it out by herself, with a bit more time, but as much as it literally, physically pained her, she did not have a clue where to even start, and again, as much as she hated to admit it, her sister had the right to know about it.

She had yet to get a day where her father wasn't busy, and whenever she went downstairs at night when he got off work, her mother was there, too, and then she had to talk to both of her parents, and she would rather not do that, actually.

Cass had the right to know, and Leo didn't want to tell her. She could do it alone.

The twins had never been very close as kids, they weren't close now. Cass had tried, but the two had never found anything that they were both interested in. Any semblance of a healthy relationship fizzled out when Leo turned twelve and started hanging out with the kids who cut class and smoked in the bathrooms at school. Any conversation they had either died out, or became an argument. It was the same with Marcy and Kai, too. They'd been a lot closer when they were kids. And now they weren't. Simple as that.

Leo had called a meeting of sorts, ten minutes ago, and asked Cass to meet her in their room. Cass was either taking her sweet time, or hadn't seen the text Leo sent. It wasn't like she framed the message as an emergency; she told her to meet her as soon as she had time, which she had assumed was now, because neither of them even went anywhere on the weekends.

"What did you do this time, Leo?" Cass opened the door, incredibly sudden, and Leo jumped a foot into the air. "Did you get into a fight again?"

Leo was about to answer with a no, Cass, I did not, because she didn't go to school the day before.

"Well, I wasn't even at school, so no-" Leo started, and rubbed the laminated photograph in between her fingers. Cass sighed dramatically. "But that isn't what I called you here for."

Leo pushed herself off her bed, her hands shaking a bit, as she carefully handed the photograph to her sister. Cass adjusted her glasses and looked back up at Leo, confused.

"I don't know where it came from," Leo admitted, shifting her weight on her feet. "I asked mom about it. She said that it's our aunt and cousins, but then dad sort of shook his head."

"So you think she's lying?"

Leo nodded. "I want to just accept what she told me and move on, but every time I just put the picture down and try to do anything else- I don't know. It's weird."

Cass sat down on the floor, patting the spot next to her with a smile. Leo sat down, and tapped the floor nervously.

"I want to try to talk to dad alone," Leo said, and Cass nodded. "But I don't know if what he'd tell me is true, either. Maybe they are just our cousins who died in a car accident, but whenever I even think that, it just isn't right."

Cass hummed. "I don't recognize them, either. I see what you mean, though. I feel like I should know them. I know their names, just... I don't know. Subconsciously?"

"That's exactly it. I need to know what really happened. So... can you help me?"

Cass raised an eyebrow, a grin painted her face, and Leo sighed, annoyed, already able to tell where this was going.

"Who are you and what have you done with my sister?" Cass fell over on her back, her hand over her heart. "Hang on, I have to call Kai, and go tell the news. And the fire department."

"Can it, Cassie." Leo stood up, lightly kicking Cass in the ribs. Her sister bounced up, smiling. "Will you help or not?"

"Of course I will," Cass said, with no hesitation at all, unlike Leo had been expecting. She had expected her to want more evidence that something was up, or to tell her that she was being dramatic. She blinked, somewhat surprised at how easy that had been.

Cass handed her the photo back, and Leo placed it gently in her hoodie pocket. "Well, it's Saturday, and our parents went out with some of their friends, so we can't do it today. Tomorrow is our best bet to talk to dad. In the meantime, I know something else we can do."

---

"Oh no."

The twins stood in front of their parents locked bedroom. Leo stared at her sister, dumbfounded. Cass looked incredibly proud of herself.

"Hear me out-"

"You see, that's the thing. I've heard you out. Twice. And I still think you're a dumbass." Leo sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "You want me to pick the lock and break in?"

"Exactly!" Cass smiled all-too-wide, and Leo gave the most drawn out sigh she had ever taken.

"This is the type of shit I'd come up with," Leo grumbled, and made a point to show how against the plan she was, but knelt down in front of the lock regardless.

"Why don't you just- I don't know, shoot a tree at the door?" Leo asked, shaking her head. She didn't actually know if that was something her sister's magic could do.

"Well, then we'd have a whole other problem. I can't get rid of trees."

Leo hummed flatly. "The lock is on the outside of the door, so mom probably took the key with her." She paused as a sudden horror dawned on her. "Hey. The door is locked for a reason. What if they're still home and they're- I don't know-"

"And they're what?"

"Nothing. Nevermind, we'd hear it. Do you have your wallet?" Leo asked. Cass usually kept it in her pocket. She nodded, and handed it to her. Leo felt around for the debit card.

"Cool. Now I have all your money. All four dollars."

"We can't all be Scrooge McDuck," Cass deadpanned. "Just open the door."

"Right, right. There's only one Scrooge. And it's me. I'm the richest duck in the world." Leo slid the card into the crack between the door and the wall, and dragged it up to the door handle. She wiggled the card in between, until the card was wedged between the latch, and she could push it open.

"And there you go," Leo gestured to the now open room. "Now what?"

"I don't know whether to be impressed or terrified that you can do that." Cass blinked, and shook her head to herself. "I don't know. Should we call Kai and Marcy?"

"Definitely not," Leo vetoed the suggestion with a headshake. "We don't want them to get caught up in whatever this is. It could be nothing, or it could be some government conspiracy."

Although, Leo thought to herself, it's weird that the door was locked in the first place.

"We're going to get in so much trouble for this," Leo mumbled, adrenaline already rushing through. "Let's just get being grounded over with."

"How are you so scared of going into our parent's room, but you have no trouble stealing ten-thousand dollars from a stranger?" Cass asked, and began wandering around the room.

Leo scoffed. "I haven't done that. Yet." She'd love ten-thousand dollars, though.

Leo began searching, unsure what exactly she was looking for. The room was seemingly innocent. There was a closet with a sliding door, and a wooden dresser, and a large bed with grayish-blue sheets. The walls were freshly painted gray, black curtains sat plainly in front of the windows. And that was all.

Cass tugged on the door to the closet with a grunt, to no avail, as it didn't open. "Why is everything in here locked?"

Leo shook her head in disbelief. "Who knows. Maybe the key is in here?"

Cass agreed to look, and Leo sat down, her hair fell against the gray carpet, as she reached her hand under her parent's bed, feeling for anything important.

She felt something wooden, and her heart skipped, as she attempted to pull it out. It was either incredibly heavy, or Leo was incredibly weak. Either-or, really.

The wooden box ended up being an intricately-designed chest, with a golden padlock keeping it closed. Leo groaned in annoyance.

She turned to the side to tell Cass what she'd found, only to find her sister midway through climbing the wooden dresser. She reached her hand out, and suddenly grinned.

"I found the keys!"

Leo gave her a deadpan stare as she fell from the dresser onto her back. with a small, pained sound.

Her attention drifted back to the box. "Cass, come see this."

"What?"

Leo took the keys from Cass as she sat down, and unlocked the chest. The padlock came off with an unceremonious thud on the carpet, and Leo braced herself for whatever it was.

She found two manila folders, each thin, only a few papers in each. Leo took a breath, and picked up the folders, handing one to Cass, telling her to let her know if it was anything important.

A photo slipped out from the bottom of the folder, and Leo set down it down to pick the picture back up. She paused to look at it first, her heart absolutely rattling with nervousness. It was a picture of herself, looking about the same age as the picture she already had, around seven. Something was different about it. The version of her looked a bit paler, and she had shadows under her eyes. The photo was in black and white, for it having been taken in 2009 at the earliest.

In the picture, she had unsettlingly dull eyes and a flat expression, almost scary to see on a seven-year-old. She wore a white, button-up, collared uniform, with a number printed in black on the top, by a pentagon-shaped pocket. She glanced over at Cass's hand, who held an identical photo, but of Cass's picture instead of herself.

Cass hummed nervously. "That's all there is in my folder, Leo."

"Mine too." Leo opened the folder and shook it, in case there happened to be invisible paper inside. "...Open the closet."

Cass nodded, standing up. Leo flipped the photo around. Her full name, birthday, and the same number as the one on the uniform had been written in black ink. Something wasn't right. Her eyes flicked over her last name.

Leo shot up, running over to meet her sister, who stared into the open closet, her hand held limply on the door.

"Cass! The names aren't right-" Leo stopped herself mid-ramble to look up, and nearly fell over, upon seeing what Cass was.

A series of long corkboards, with polaroid pictures hanging up by red pins, all connected by a black thread. One of the photos was missing, and it wasn't hard to guess where it was.

"What were you saying about the names?" Cass asked quietly, still staring at the board.

"Right. Look at this." Leo flipped the photo around. "Leonie A. Evans. That's... not right."

Cass stilled, but nodded, and walked forward, ripping the photographs off the board and piling them up in her hands.

"Let's just keep going through the pictures, and see if anything clicks. We'll figure out a timeline, or something." Cass handed her half of the stack of photos, and sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. Leo sat across from her.

The first photograph had Leo and a girl her age with blonde hair, wearing the same white uniform. The two were holding hands, and it looked like they were picking dandelions.

"May 15, 2009 The guards here gave me a camera to take pictures with. The kids wanted a lot of pictures of themselves. Leonie and Lilith have been going around picking "flowers." I don't have the heart to tell them that they're actually weeds."

Leo put the photograph in the middle to let Cass see, and gestured for her to read the next one.

"May 15th still. This is just a picture of my wrist. Cass and Jasmine took the dandelions from Lily once the two got bored and decided to play tag. The other kids made me a bracelet, which is just the stems of three dandelions tied together, but it's a bracelet nonetheless. You can sort of see the tattoo on my hand. The twins don't have them yet."

Cass put the photo in the middle, and as promised, there was what looked like a snowflake engraved on the person's pale, thin hand. There was also a sloppy bracelet made out of dandelions.

Leo knew she didn't have one, but checked the back of her hand regardless. Cass did the same. Leo cleared her throat as she prepared to read the next one.

"June 1, 2010. We haven't been outside in a while, but the kids were still happy to see each other again. I taught the kids how to play a few games. I also promised to read a book with Leo next week. She wouldn't stop asking. The twins seemed to like the concept of Simon Says quite a bit. Here's Leo tackling Cass for not playing it right."

Leo snorted at the image of herself attacking Cass, and set it down in the middle.

"June 8, 2010. Leo was really interested in my camera. She wanted to use it, and naturally, took a photo of all of us. I'm the one in the middle, Lily is the one next to me, and Cass is the one with my sister, Jasmine. The picture is a bit blurry, but it's not bad, for being done by an eight-year-old. I'm glad this is my last picture before the guards take the camera back. It's nice to have, I think."

The photo showed a group of kids standing in a row. The blonde haired girl, Lily, looked to be waving at the camera, smiling brightly. There was a boy in the middle, seemingly the one who had been taking the pictures, and he seemed like a teenager, with fluffy black hair. He smiled politely. There was Cass, and another girl her age with thick, curly black hair. Leo's finger blocked a corner of the picture.

Leo stared at the pictures, feeling suddenly, overwhelmingly cold. "This is worse than I thought, Cass. I just thought mom lied about how our aunt died, not whatever this is."

"What does this mean?" Cass gathered up the pictures into a neat stack, and looked up at her, looking nervous.

("We can always end it now. We don't have to keep them, you know," she had heard her mother say in a cold, hushed tone.

"No. You said the experiment was over at eighteen. Not yet," her father replied. Leo had interrupted them before she could hear more.)

"Shit!"

Cass whipped her head around to look at her. Leo bit her nail, staring intensely at the carpet. "Mom wants to take us back. Wherever that place was, mom wants to take us back. Dad said that some experiment would be over at eighteen. I overheard it when I went to talk to them the other day! I didn't even realize they were talking about us."

"So..." Cass trailed off, waiting for Leo to finish her ramble. Leo's eyes snapped up to meet hers.

"So we can't stay."

"What?" Cass's eyes visibly widened, and Leo sighed softly.

"Look, whatever's going on... it's putting both of us at risk. We'll keep investigating. We'll find out anything else that we can, and we'll leave."

"Leo! We can't just leave."

"Why not?" Leo challenged. "We have enough money to live alone, and we're sixteen. I can forge mom and dad's signatures and get us an apartment somewhere. Somewhere far away."

"You've been thinking about this, haven't you?" Cass whispered, and stood up with Leo. "Look, why can't we just move in with grandma? She's been offering for forever now."

Leo looked down, swiping her sock against the gray carpet. "We'd put them in danger, too. It'd be the first place anyone would look, anyway."

Cass took a step back. "Leo, no."

Leo shrugged, indifferent to whether or not Cass came along. As long as Leo got out. Whatever Cass did was none of her concern. But-

"I know you won't let me go alone, Cassie," Leo said in a sing-song tone. "So, what'll it be?"

Cass sighed, relenting. "...Fine. We'll take a week, and we'll come up with an actual plan, and then we'll leave. Deal?"

"One week. Deal."

[angst-fairygodmother]

Light Fingers (The Umbrella Academy)

Diego’s vigilantism brings him repeatedly across the path of a young cat burglar. But as he finds himself developing feelings for the thief, he begins to wonder if there’s more to her than meets the eye, and whether they’re really on opposite sides. And as their relationship deepens, it brings with it a plot involving his estranged adopted father, and threatens to destroy all of them.

CHAPTER 2: WE KEEP MEETING

Word Count: 1484 Pairing: Diego Hargreeves x Reader Rating: T Cross-posted to AO3: here

Previous Chapter: Cat and Mouse || Masterlist

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were wiping down tables during a slow period, several days later, still thinking about the museum kiss, when the bell above the door jingled and your breath caught in your throat. Walking in, looking casual as could be despite still basically being dressed in the same outfit he wore in all of your late night encounters including the harness of knives, was the vigilante. As he sat at the counter, you glanced around and realized with a nervous pang, that you were the only one on shift.

“Hi, welcome to the Ace,” you said, plastering on a smile and a slightly higher than normal voice, hoping he wouldn’t recognize you. You handed him a laminated paper menu and moved away quickly to get him silverware and a placemat.

“Do I know you?” he asked when you returned a few minutes later to take his order.

“I don’t think we’ve met. I doubt I’d forget a face like yours.” You smiled even as you mentally scolded yourself for flirting. That was the exact opposite of a good way to get him to stop paying attention.

Still, you found yourself gravitating back to him, chatting and keeping him company throughout his meal, laughing at his jokes. For his part, he seemed to welcome the attention, laying on the charm and flirtation thick.

When you brought him his check, his fingers brushed against yours, lingering longer than necessary but not so long as to be uncomfortable, and you felt the heat of a blush creep across your cheeks.

“I’m Diego, by the way,” he said with that damnable charming smirk.

“Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you, Y/N. I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Oh I’m sure,” you smiled mysteriously.

He raised an eyebrow but you said nothing more, waving your fingers at him as he walked out.

~

Three nights later, you were working on your latest score, but you mind kept playing through your interactions with Diego Hargreeves. His little visit to the diner had finally chased the kiss away from the forefront of your mind. But not the rest of him. Not the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed, or his tongue pinched between his teeth in his rare, genuine smile, not unlike the ‘blep’ of a cat. And if anything it had only made the racing of your heart and the singing in your veins worse at how easy you had fallen into conversation, about anything and everything, how comfortable you felt around him.

You jammed the long metal shim into the window, anger overtaking you and interfering with the usual delicacy that you used when approaching a lock, practically brute-forcing it open instead.

‘Get it together, Y/N,’ you scolded yourself as the lock popped and you eased the pane open. ‘You don’t have time to be distracted by some pretty man-child playing superhero.’

You swung yourself inside, shifting your weight carefully so that you boots barely made a sound as you dropped to the polished tile floor.

An office complex wasn’t your usual target, not soft enough, not enough that was easily fungible, but tonight you were making an exception. The CEO of this particular company had built himself a name on the backs of people far smarter than him including his wife, whom he left for a much younger woman as soon as he’d made his fortune and in the divorce had managed to manipulate the courts in his favor and leave her with nothing, not even the patents and plans to her own creations. She had come to you, hearing about you through a friend of a friend, and begged you to help her get something, anything back. When you heard the story, you decided that such misbehavior could not stand, and had agreed not only to get her back what was rightfully hers, but to take him down. And your quest to do so started right here, in a tragically unsecured file room.

You were flipping through a stack of designs, looking for any of the project numbers she had given you (written along the inside of your gloved wrist so you wouldn’t forget them), when you were startled by a knocking sound. Panicked, you plunged the room into darkness, save for what trickled in the window from the streetlights.

You mind raced. There shouldn’t have been anyone else in the building and you weren’t going after prototypes or payrolls or other things that would be expected to be stolen and therefore be under watch. The only thing that you could think was that it was a trap, and you had fallen for it.

Hoping that whoever it was hadn’t seen you, you pressed yourself into the space between the filing cabinets.

“Relax,” Diego drawled and you felt your shoulders sag with, as much as you didn’t want to admit it, relief at the sound of his familiar voice. “I thought it might be you.”

“Is that why you didn’t bother with the knife this time? I finally rate a warning before you try to stab me?”

“If I’d wanted to stab you any of those times, I would have. I don’t miss.”

“Yes, I remember the claims. I read all the magazine articles growing up.” You smirked, stepping back out of the alcove to face him, arms folded across your chest and one hand resting on your chin cheekily. “You used to be quite the heartthrob.”

He shrugged.

“I know no one saw me come into the building, so how did you even know I was here?”

“Silent alarm. Tripped when the window opened. Guess your partner missed one.”

“What partner?” you frowned. You worked alone, and if someone was out there giving the impression otherwise, you needed to nip it in the bud, for your professional mystique if nothing else.

“No one’s ever caught you on a security camera. Not even the museum, which has a state of the art system,” he stated accusingly. “You must have a partner tampering with the tapes.”

“Next you’ll be telling me that it’s hard to beat a laser grid.”

“It is. It should be. For any normal person.”

“Nonsense, my stabby friend,” you shrugged nonchalantly, inspecting your nails while you talked. “It’s all just smoke and mirrors. But hey, if there was an alarm, your cop friends will be come sooner than usual. So, catch me later?”

“What?”

He hadn’t even finished the word before turned and darted back across the room and through the window with a laugh like the jingling of coins, dropping away into the darkness like as ghost. He followed, close enough behind that for the moment before you hit the ground, you could see the light cast artful shadows over his face, sharpening his handsome angles and making your heart skip a beat.

After a moment’s hesitation, Diego climbed over the window sill. He wasn’t going to let you get away again, not without answers. Luckily, you had left behind the rope you’d used to scale the side of the building, the navy blue nylon swaying slightly still from your rapid repel back to the street. He twisted it into his fists, slowly easing himself down, pausing at window ledges to keep his balance, hating how much lead he was giving you. Still, he reasoned, once he was on his feet again, he was agile and could make up the ground.

~

It was nearing dawn when Diego finally gave up hope of tracking you down, slamming his fist into the wall of the alley he stood in with a growl of frustration.

‘If you’d just look up, foolish boy,’ you thought, watching him from the fire escape above him, just outside your own kitchen window. ‘You were so close.’

Watching him walk away, you marveled at yourself and the fact that you almost wanted him to catch you. Maybe, if you took the time to explain why you were doing this, why you had been for the better part of your life, he’d understand. After all, he wasn’t exactly making a legal living, and he been as cursed as you. He had grown up, maybe even more than you, too quickly, saddled with powers and responsibility and expectation.  If there was anyone in the world who might understand the emptiness in your chest and the drive to fill it with something, anything, that made the burden of your abilities and the circumstances of your birth worth it, it would be him. Maybe he was someone you could trust, lean on. Your heart ached, not realizing until the thought crossed your mind how badly you wanted that, and how much you hoped he wanted it too.

Still, the merry chase you’d led him on had taken up more time than you’d have liked and you had the opening shift, plus a client to meet. No time to dwell as his silhouette faded into the morning mist.

[oneofiv]

Such a dirty, filthy word...GRIEF!

I am no expert but by life's infinite graces I am quite familiar with grief and the variety of coping mechanisms that come along with it. Welcome to my Ted Talk. Ok, serious face. I have been on this planet for a little over 33 years and in that time frame I have lost not one, but both parents and most recently and easily most gut wrenching my little sister Devin. If you are uncomfortable with dark humor and the concept of complete black hole sadness, I'd say turn around right now but really you should stay. Because these two things are eventually unavoidable. So buckle up babies!

Dad: 15 years old, stubborn, insecure, massive chip on the shoulder

Losing my dad was tough, for many reasons. He was the first. Uncharted territory. How does one go about living in a world where one minute you had two parents and the next you're down to one? Well more like half of one. Mom wasn't doing so swell back in 2001. She had a lot of demons (too many to go into in the post but trust me we'll get there one day). So now, I am the oldest sibling of a one parent household. Dad was the navigator, he was the one who knew the next step. I think this was the first time I felt completely and utterly helpless. I remember I was having a good day on September 27, 2001. My friend Brett and I went to the mall, I'm pretty sure I bought a purse from American Eagle. Back at home, sprawled out on my bed attempting to start some homework, the phone rang. It was my Dad's mom. You ever know something is wrong before given any actual reasoning? That's happened to me twice in my life. Once, 3 years earlier and this day. I knew he was gone. My grandma Alice asked to speak to my other grandma Carol (whom we lived with). She said nothing other than "Hi sweetie, can I talk to grandma Carol?" Thinking back on it there was no real shift in her tone of voice, maybe subtly but not enough to send red flags waving around in my mind. When it was finally said out loud that he was gone, I embraced the laminate flooring beneath me. An ungodly wail escaped my mouth. I became one with my siblings as a ball of overwhelming grief. A son without his idol, two daughters who wondered who would walk them down the aisle now? With that quick call the life that we had known was gone. He was gone.

Mom: 25 years old, still stubborn, still insecure, working on that chip, in a super unhealthy relationship

We use to joke about how it would come down to the apocalypse and all that would remain would be the cockroaches, Twinkies and my mama. She had done so much damage to herself in her short lifetime that it was baffling how she made it as long as she did. But despite all of that it was still absolutely shocking when she really died. I was living 900 miles away from my family in Myrtle Beach when I got the call from my sister. My knees gave out, my ears starting to ring. I now have no parents. How does that happen? How do some people have both and I get none? Selfish, irrational thoughts like that one would soon consume my mind. In chaos we booked a flight back to New York but it wasn't for 24 hours. We can drive there quicker than that. We ended up using the credit for the flight back for the official goodbye a few weeks later. Guilt. Crippling, soul crushing, guilt. Could I have changed the outcome by being kinder to her? Were my siblings right? My tough love approach was falling on deaf ears? I didn't tell her I loved her the last time I saw her. In fact, I'm pretty sure I just scoffed at her. A month earlier we celebrated Christmas. In the week I was back home she never emerged from her room. Or if she did, I wasn't around to see it. I hugged my siblings, cracked some jokes and packed up the car to escape back down to the warmth. Halfway down the block, "SUSIE", my most prized possession was back in my childhood room, we turned around. And there she was, making her way down the stairs like the living dead. Ghostly pale, disheveled, with the saddest eyes I've ever known. A common site, unfortunately. No words were exchanged. A sarcastic breathe of air was my greeting. I will have to live with this. Realistically, I think my mom knew how much I loved her. She had to. I spent the better part of 15 years begging her to come back to us. If that didn't scream love, what did? Maybe actually telling her "I love you"? I do Mom. More than words were ever able to express in your lifetime. I hope I am like you when I have kids of my own. Seriously! Minus the obvious issues, I would be disgustingly lucky to be a fraction of the mother you were. I wish you knew.

Devin: 29 years old, not so stubborn, still insecure, chip is long gone, freshly laid off

...I don't want to write about this. I've never had a problem sharing my grief about my parents but Devin is different. Its still so new. Its never been believable to me. Plus to be actually honest about this one I would have to divulged some things that I would rather keep close to the chest. Because Devin doesn't deserve to be remember any other way than as the wildly funny, intimidatingly gorgeous, absolute lunatic that she was. All you need to know is that my little sister died 5 days after her 28th birthday. I was the last one to see her. She was wearing a "Finding Gerald" shirt (i.e. Finding Dory) and the last thing I said to her, as I touched her back, was "I love you Dev". This grief. This is the monster you hear about. The one that takes down others. The one that is so easy to get lost in. The one that makes you wonder if you should follow and leave too. When I think about her not being here my initial reaction is sadness, obviously. But that is shortly followed by a cocktail of guilt, anger, resentment, self loathing, loathing in general, bafflement, you name it. And its that cocktail that gets stuck as a lump in my throat. I can't swallow it. I can't allow myself to move past those feelings. I can shake off the sadness but not these. I am conditioned to sadness. These were new. I would, and I mean this with every single inch of me, trade places with her if I could. The world deserves Devin but more importantly Devin deserved the world.

When my Dad died I coped like most teenagers would. I hated my mom, my littlest brother was the bane of my existence, I discovered self harm (eventually to be replace with the more socially acceptable tattoos and piercings) and I fell in love with a boy. With Mom, as I was older and "wiser" I coped with booze and drugs and sex. The holy trinity! After Devin, I ate. A lot. I went from a squishy size 12 to a robust size 20. My interest in guys was minimal, I assume a side effect of my new padding. I like to think that I have covered the spread on ways to cope after losing a loved one. But the reality is I could have done so much more damage if wanted to. I could have become #4 on the Sheppard Family Tree of Death. Which, I have dibs on by the way. I refuse to outlive anyone else! Call me selfish but I am done losing people. I am feverishly knocking on all wood surfaces right now. I think another one would break me. And for good. I often wonder how it hasn't already. Am I stronger than I think I am? Or in a weird way does my inability to follow through with things also effect this aspect of my life? ← If you are curious what dark humor looks like, this would be a prime example. In other words, I am not suicidal, just super fucked up!

People have asked me how I do it, I assume they mean live with so many people absent. The only thing I have to say to that is, Quinn. The littlest of the Sheppard's, a full grown adult man now, but forever my chicken nugget. You think its been rough for me? Quinn was 5 when Dad died, 15 when Mom left and 19 when he lost his best friend. All of that before he could remove the "teen" from his age. If he can keep his head up and walk this earth without a massive grudge then fuck it so can I! This is a constant theme in our lives, perspective. No matter how bad its been, it could always be worse. The hardest day of our lives could be a cakewalk for someone else. This doesn't mean we're not entitled to grieve the way that we do but it also doesn't excuse us for being bad people. I refuse to let the loss of my family members allow me to treat others in a negative fashion.

I will probably come back to this topic time and time again but for now this is it.

[endlessarchite]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

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My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

A decent deshedding brush — While I have used a number of them over the years, there are two deshedding tools that pretty much tie for me as the best: the FURminator and the SleekEZ. The first I picked up in store (it’s a little pricer than most, but it was worth it for me!) and the second was part of a swag bag from a pet conference I went to a few years ago. Charlie loves getting brushed from the FURminator and I personally love the INSANE amount of deshedding the SleekEZ one does… it’s like brushing a horse (I only comb her outside with that one, though… it basically creates a whole new dog’s worth of fur. I just also saw through grabbing these links that there’s a deshedding shampoo, too, so I’m going to try that out next!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[thoughtfuldreambarbarian]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway)

It's Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven't read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years

When she's happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I've had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy - but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home officewith the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She's a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don't always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn't), pet beds that can't be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it's mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here's that list! If I ever find other things, I'll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there's also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below - so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don't see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browserhere).

*some links contain affiliates*

!function(d,s,id){ var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https'; if(!d.getElementById(id)) { e = d.createElement(s); e.id = id; e.src = p + '://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js'; d.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.__stp === 'object') if(d.readyState === 'complete') { window.__stp.init(); } }(document, 'script', 'shopthepost-script');

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder - I already explained how my DIY project from last yearfixed Charlie's habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it's worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she's still a dog still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats - I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It's not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it's a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don't want her tracking the muckinto the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her pawswith wet wipes, and my floor doesn't suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don't hate them.

Grooming wet wipes - Of course, now that I've got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie's allergies (if you've ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I'm talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park - Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo - Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She'd freak out to the point where groomers won't even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I'd use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she'd get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don't have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo - if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer - There's a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder- a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after firstusinga good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery -After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites.I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charliethe best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don't even need to put on pantsor feel guilty that I forgot her food duringmy last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it's not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin - I haven't finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the rightproducts for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can saveyou time, money, and square footage.

Tough stuffed dog toys - There's unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they're labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I've learned to just embrace it, but buying tough toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she'll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

A decent deshedding brush - While I have used a number of them over the years, there are two deshedding tools that pretty much tie for me as the best: the FURminator and the SleekEZ. The first I picked up in store (it's a little pricer than most, but it was worth it for me!) and the second was part of a swag bag from a pet conference I went to a few years ago. Charlie loves getting brushed from the FURminator and I personally love the INSANE amount of deshedding the SleekEZ one does it's like brushing a horse (I only comb her outside with that one, though it basically creates a whole new dog's worth of fur. I just also saw through grabbing these links that there's a deshedding shampoo, too, so I'm going to try that out next!

Honestly, that's all I can think of for now, but I'll add more as I think of it! It's also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them - they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don't have details on precisely what you'll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I've gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that's usually how it goes, but if that's not the case I'll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don't see it, make sure you're clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website//Subscribe//Advertise//Twitter//Facebook//Google+

[woodcraftor]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

//<![CDATA[ !function(d,s,id){ var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https'; if(!d.getElementById(id)) { e = d.createElement(s); e.id = id; e.src = p + '://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js'; d.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.__stp === 'object') if(d.readyState === 'complete') { window.__stp.init(); } }(document, 'script', 'shopthepost-script'); //]]>

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway) posted first on http://ift.tt/2qOPBf9

[sherlocklexa]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

from car2 http://ift.tt/2rHiMy7 via as shown a lot

[chocdono]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

from mix1 http://ift.tt/2rHiMy7 via with this info

[petraself]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

!function(d,s,id){ var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https'; if(!d.getElementById(id)) { e = d.createElement(s); e.id = id; e.src = p + '://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js'; d.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.__stp === 'object') if(d.readyState === 'complete') { window.__stp.init(); } }(document, 'script', 'shopthepost-script');

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway) published first on http://ift.tt/1kI9W8s

[bespokekitchesldn]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

!function(d,s,id){ var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https'; if(!d.getElementById(id)) { e = d.createElement(s); e.id = id; e.src = p + '://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js'; d.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.__stp === 'object') if(d.readyState === 'complete') { window.__stp.init(); } }(document, 'script', 'shopthepost-script');

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog Far Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

from The Ugly Duckling House https://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/things-that-make-a-busy-life-with-a-dog-far-easier-giveaway/

[endlessarchite]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

!function(d,s,id){ var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https'; if(!d.getElementById(id)) { e = d.createElement(s); e.id = id; e.src = p + '://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js'; d.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.__stp === 'object') if(d.readyState === 'complete') { window.__stp.init(); } }(document, 'script', 'shopthepost-script');

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

A decent deshedding brush — While I have used a number of them over the years, there are two deshedding tools that pretty much tie for me as the best: the FURminator and the SleekEZ. The first I picked up in store (it’s a little pricer than most, but it was worth it for me!) and the second was part of a swag bag from a pet conference I went to a few years ago. Charlie loves getting brushed from the FURminator and I personally love the INSANE amount of deshedding the SleekEZ one does… it’s like brushing a horse (I only comb her outside with that one, though… it basically creates a whole new dog’s worth of fur. I just also saw through grabbing these links that there’s a deshedding shampoo, too, so I’m going to try that out next!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[endlessarchite]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

!function(d,s,id){ var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https'; if(!d.getElementById(id)) { e = d.createElement(s); e.id = id; e.src = p + '://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js'; d.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.__stp === 'object') if(d.readyState === 'complete') { window.__stp.init(); } }(document, 'script', 'shopthepost-script');

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

A decent deshedding brush — While I have used a number of them over the years, there are two deshedding tools that pretty much tie for me as the best: the FURminator and the SleekEZ. The first I picked up in store (it’s a little pricer than most, but it was worth it for me!) and the second was part of a swag bag from a pet conference I went to a few years ago. Charlie loves getting brushed from the FURminator and I personally love the INSANE amount of deshedding the SleekEZ one does… it’s like brushing a horse (I only comb her outside with that one, though… it basically creates a whole new dog’s worth of fur. I just also saw through grabbing these links that there’s a deshedding shampoo, too, so I’m going to try that out next!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[endlessarchite]

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

!function(d,s,id){ var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https'; if(!d.getElementById(id)) { e = d.createElement(s); e.id = id; e.src = p + '://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js'; d.body.appendChild(e); } if(typeof window.__stp === 'object') if(d.readyState === 'complete') { window.__stp.init(); } }(document, 'script', 'shopthepost-script');

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

A decent deshedding brush — While I have used a number of them over the years, there are two deshedding tools that pretty much tie for me as the best: the FURminator and the SleekEZ. The first I picked up in store (it’s a little pricer than most, but it was worth it for me!) and the second was part of a swag bag from a pet conference I went to a few years ago. Charlie loves getting brushed from the FURminator and I personally love the INSANE amount of deshedding the SleekEZ one does… it’s like brushing a horse (I only comb her outside with that one, though… it basically creates a whole new dog’s worth of fur. I just also saw through grabbing these links that there’s a deshedding shampoo, too, so I’m going to try that out next!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

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Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

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Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway)

It’s Pet Week part 2! If you missed part one, see this post.

For those who have never read this blog before (or haven’t read for long), let me introduce you to the other major character in this DIY adventure: Charlie…

Both she and my decorating habits have changed a lot over the years…

When she’s happy and relaxed, our life at home is pretty quiet:

More often than not, this is a more realistic picture of her:

Over the years, I’ve had to make lots of adjustments to keep her happy and me sane. At times when I worked in an office, it meant turning down jobs that would make me travel so much that she would be boarded all the time. Now that I work from home as a full-time blogger though, you would think it makes everything easy — but while it is nicer for a dog in many ways, there are still obstacles we have to work on together:

I do conference calls with brands while at home. Which is usually right when the UPS guy decides to deliver something and send my dog to DEFCON 3. Not even working in a home office with the door closed makes this ideal.

DIY projects, tools, and related dangers are all around, and she likes to be directly in on the action (and even sometimes underneath my ladder).

She’s a the medium-to-large size, which means my family likens her to a GIANT and don’t always know how to deal with her size compared to their smaller dogs.

Her size also means heavy bags of food to carry around, larger spaces on the couch (someday I hope to get a decent picture of her thinking she can fit when she totally doesn’t), pet beds that can’t be neatly hidden, easy counter and table access, etc.). Luckily, she is well trained enough not to climb on things and understands unattended food does not mean her food, so it’s mostly just her climbing the fence that I worry about.

Lots and lots of dirt and fur tracked into the house (to think, I used to want this to be a no-shoe house… HA!)

Adjusting to having a new puppy in the house meant a lot of changes right away when I first adopted her, but after a few years, I learned about those super awesome pet-related things that I had no clue about for a long time: new products, new websites, and other things that make maintaining a busy life with an active dog even easier. So, as I promised earlier, here’s that list! If I ever find other things, I’ll continue to add to this same post (for easy bookmarking later). And there’s also a giveaway from one of my sponsors, Swiffer, below — so be sure to enter with a comment this week and in the widget at the bottom of this post (if you don’t see it in your reader, click over to the post in your browser here).

*some links contain affiliates*

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My DIY elevated feeder — I already explained how my DIY project from last year fixed Charlie’s habit of tossing over her food bowl, but it’s worth repeating! Since having built it, there has been far less food on the floor (not zero food, but she’s still a dog… still a messy eater, but she usually keeps it in the bowl now instead of turning over the bowl and eating it all directly off the floor).

Before:

After:

Microfiber floor mats — I have two microfiber floor mats, one at the front door and one in front of the patio, that are specially designed for catching mud and fur whenever Charlie enters and exits the house. It’s not fool-proof, but it does make a significant difference for me whenever it’s a rainy/muddy/dirty day outside and I don’t want her tracking the muck into the house. I find that since having used them, I am spending less time and effort trying to wipe each of her paws with wet wipes, and my floor doesn’t suffer. And their gray color ties in enough with my decor that I don’t hate them.

Grooming wet wipes — Of course, now that I’ve got my new block print rug in the living room (and as a fan of lighter colored rugs in general), I still have to wipe their feet. Even though I could use a cheap paper towel, I like the dog wipes for paws. These anti-itch wipes are great for treating Charlie’s allergies (if you’ve ever seen your dog licking or chewing their paws after coming inside, you know what I’m talking about) and I like these grooming wipes as well for when Charlie has a dirty playtime at the park — Georgia red clay is no joke! I buy the bigger containers for savings.

Rinse-free/waterless dog shampoo — Charlie is an anxious dog. And when it comes to regular grooming, it was a LONG process just to even get her to take a bath. She’d freak out to the point where groomers won’t even take her, so I had to re-train her at home. I started with this rinse-free shampoo to keep the time in the tub to a minimum, and it made a huge difference. Over time, I’d use the same shampoo, but incorporate water so she’d get used to it, eventually graduating to deeper cleans. She learned to love the massage and being brushed, and now we can get through it without trauma or me getting soaked to the bone from trying to keep her in the tub. The rinse-free alternative truly did give me some relief (and still does if she needs a quick bath but I don’t have the time or energy for a longer one).

Oatmeal shampoo — if your dog is itching a lot from allergies or fleas (even if you use good flea treatments, they can still get bitten and itch, especially when warm summers like this year mean more summer fleas!). This one is highly rated.

Swiffer — There’s a reason I fully embraced working with this brand as a sponsor of the blog! I use Swiffer all the time. Charlie is a shedder — a massive, unrelenting shedder. Even after first using a good floor vacuum that can pick up her tumbleweeds of hair, I still have to go back through with a Swiffer Wet Jet to take care of all of her paw prints and use their dry cloths to take care of lots of other surfaces. Whenever one of my friends gets a new house or pet, Swiffer products are a very welcome gift (and you can get your own gift by entering the giveaway below!). Oh, and I forgot to mention in the last post: they actually reformulated their wet jet so that it no longer leaves streaks on laminate floors like mine. It used to be my biggest gripe with their products, and their development team took that feedback from lots of folks reporting the same thing and went looking for a better solution (pun-intended).

Food delivery — After discovering the mud mats mentioned above, I went searching for other smart solutions on pet-related websites. I found my answer in the form of automated dog food delivery. I try to give Charlie the best food I can afford, and I order the BIG bags. And since I also subscribe for steady delivery, I get another 5% off. The end result is that it actually beats the price I was paying to drive to a store like Petsmart, but I don’t even need to put on pants or feel guilty that I forgot her food during my last errand for groceries (which sometimes means she gets people food when I run out, but it’s not great for her digestion).

A rolling food bin — I haven’t finished the pantry makeover, but an improvement I made several years ago was a simple investment in a rolling bin that was large enough to fit an entire large bag of dog food. Given that the cheapest price per pound of food is in the large bags, I would buy in bulk, but when I was using a smaller bin, it meant that I could only store a small amount each time in the previous plastic container and had to keep the rest elsewhere (which is a quick way to clutter). I think I only spent $20 on a new bin that also had rolling wheels and a flip-up top, but the mileage and convenience I get out of it is night and day. It just goes to show, once again, that investing in the right products for your house (even if it costs a little bit more than what you were using before) is a smart move because it can save you time, money, and square footage.

“Tough” stuffed dog toys — There’s unfortunately no stopping the gutting of a stuffed toy sometimes. Even when they’re labeled something akin to indestructible, I look at the claim and laugh, because Charlie will eventually find her way inside the stomach of that toy if it contains a squeaker. I’ve learned to just embrace it, but buying “tough” toys instead of the cheap ones still mean she usually hangs onto them a little longer, and that added time is easier on my costs long-term (I pay more upfront, but she hangs onto them long enough for break even or better). Sometimes she’ll have a favorite and keep them intact for months, and others will last just a few weeks, but less cleanup and a happy dog who is quiet during conference calls is a win-win for me!

A decent deshedding brush — While I have used a number of them over the years, there are two deshedding tools that pretty much tie for me as the best: the FURminator and the SleekEZ. The first I picked up in store (it’s a little pricer than most, but it was worth it for me!) and the second was part of a swag bag from a pet conference I went to a few years ago. Charlie loves getting brushed from the FURminator and I personally love the INSANE amount of deshedding the SleekEZ one does… it’s like brushing a horse (I only comb her outside with that one, though… it basically creates a whole new dog’s worth of fur. I just also saw through grabbing these links that there’s a deshedding shampoo, too, so I’m going to try that out next!

Honestly, that’s all I can think of for now, but I’ll add more as I think of it! It’s also a great question in terms of a special giveaway:

Giveaway question: What products or services have you been grateful to discover in caring for your pet?

Leave a comment on this blog post for a sweet goodie box from Swiffer! Be sure to also update the Rafflecopter widget too. I actually just asked them as I was writing this post if they would throw in something for you guys (another reason why I like working with them — they really have an awesome and super flexible team), so I don’t have details on precisely what you’ll wind up with, but the box is generally this size (photo is of my sister modeling one of her housewarming gifts):

Full giveaway details:

Prize: a sweet goodie box from Swiffer to help you & your pet keep things fresh & clean (any package I’ve gotten from them includes ample refills to last a while)

Number of winners: one

Geographical restrictions: U.S. only (that’s usually how it goes, but if that’s not the case I’ll open it up further!)

Ends: Friday, June 23 at 11:59PM

To enter: leave a comment on this blog post answering my giveaway question & update the embedded widget (if you have trouble with the widget, please let me know, and if you don’t see it, make sure you’re clicked over to my site directly!)

Ready? Go! And thanks in advance for your tips and recommendations on other items… I hope Charlie and I discover something in the process!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: This post and giveaway are sponsored by Swiffer, but as always, all text and opinions, embarrassing stories, and bad jokes are 100% my own.

The post Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Things That Make a Busy Life with a Dog a LOT Easier (+ Giveaway) published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j