Well, it was certainly an interesting weekend for us. Saturday was a great day. We started it off by taking the dogs for a nice long walk on the beach. Lexi and Zev both got to enjoy some off-leash time and had a blast frolicking all over the beach. Zev even went for a swim (he loves the cool water, and he has a thick coat so he doesn’t get too cold if it’s a quick swim). Lexi looked like she was interested in going in as well, but we stopped her from doing so to keep her boots and coat from getting soaked (I’m sure she would be freezing afterwards, as well, with her thin coat). They had a fun time running around and sniffing everything and were very well behaved. We leashed them both up when we began approaching a woman with two beautiful German Shepherds and worked on Lexi’s reaction to the other dogs. While it wasn’t pretty, it has shown improvement, so we were very happy. It was helpful that her two dogs walked calmly with her and passed us without a problem. It is never fun when we see another reactive dog on leash, as it tends to just fuel the fire when another dog is as (or more) excited as Lexi. After our walk the dogs were exhausted and slept most of the day, and we went to a nice dinner to celebrate both my mom’s birthday and my acceptance to U of Hawaii. It was a great day!
Today, however, was not so fun. A few days ago we heard a loud “Pop” somewhere in the living room, but couldn’t figure out what it was. This morning, we noticed that some of our electronics were not working properly. The microwave came on at only half power, the stove barely produced heat, and a stereo in the living room was turning itself on and off. Perplexed, we checked some surge protectors, reset some outlets, and then opened the breaker box behind our TV. Lo and behold, a portion of it was charred and burnt, and flipping the breaker resulted in a spark and some flames in the box. Scary! It was a very small flame, but obviously still cause for much concern. We cut the power to the whole house and immediately called our landlord, who was able to call an electrician that lives down the road from us. He was at the house within 5 minutes and determined that we needed a whole new breaker box.
He also noted that we were extremely lucky that nothing happened sooner (ya think?!?!). It’s scary to think that John and I were both getting ready to leave the house for a few hours before we realized what was going on, and the dogs would have been left alone in the house. I shudder just thinking about all of the awful things that could have happened. We really got lucky. I’m going to give the dogs some extra hugs and kisses tonight, for sure.
So, after 10 hours, the electrician had a new breaker box in and everything is safe and working properly. He will be back on Tuesday to finish a few small things and make sure all is well. Huge kudos to him (Trevor) for responding to the call so quickly and spending so much time at our house, on a Sunday of all days. It was truly appreciated, and he was a really pleasant guy to spend the day with, all things considered. The dogs were great with all the commotion. Once they got used to Trevor being in the house they relaxed and stopped barking at him. They were both curious as to what he was doing behind their TV, but Zev was not a fan of the loud noises coming from his tools, so he hung out in the bedroom for a while. Lexi could have cared less about the noise and relaxed on the couch with me. Luckily it was not too cold today, since we have electric heat!
Otherwise, all is well. We are all now relaxing and watching one of our favorite shows, The Walking Dead”. Hopefully this week will bring my remaining grad school decisions (UConn and UMass Amherst) and no more household issues. We hope you all had a great, stress-free weekend! Hugs and kisses!
all of the sand from Lexi’s boots after our walk on the beach!
batman and robin
hanging out while our new friend Trevor worked all day. thanks Trevor!
Zev Love and Lexi 