Saturday, August 14, 2010

Busy Week of Nothing...

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity and no results for the effort. When you have a puppy, housebreaking and scheduling are the BIG jobs. Linzy is learning, but not as fast as Axel did. Not sure why. Could be that I am not able to contain her to a single room… so she can sometimes wander out of sight. Fortunately the floor is tile. The other part is getting used to being on call and watch … remembering to take her out about every 60 minutes and monitoring what she does.


She is very smart. She has already learned to sit and drop it. She sleeps in her kennel, and likes it well enough to just get in. Most nights we get to the wee hours before she wants to go out. Sometimes we need to go out around midnight or at 5. So my days are starting really early, even though I don’t get much done.

We thought we were going to have a really big problem. Axel for the first 2 days was great… but then he had a change of heart and was not happy to have another dog in the house and gave her grief every time she came near him. It was bad enough that I thought we were going to have to send Linzy back. But something changed again and Axel is back to being the great dog he is.

So we have been here in the house for nearly a month and in Africa for almost 7 weeks. Do we have our Air shipment yet? NO. On Friday morning we got an email wondering if we were aware that our stuff was here and had been in South African Customs long enough to begin accruing storage fees. What? I have been emailing the person at the Embassy responsible for this for at least 2 weeks, maybe more. And all I have gotten in response “is that it takes time” and the last we heard maybe delivery in the middle of next week, but she would let us know. Well we didn’t take that sitting still. We sent an email to the company that moves it through Customs asking where it was and lo and behold, it could have been delivered Friday afternoon, but I was not home, so they are telling us Monday at 10 a!!! It will be like Christmas.

I have been trying to remember what is in the 3 very large boxes. Ok I know I packed toiletries, personal medications (vitamins and supplements), some books, clothes, towels, my down comforter and cover, some dog toys, bowls, gates, and my sewing machine and projects that were supposed to keep me sane!!! It’s too late for that. We have a preliminary date for the Sea Shipment as 9/23… but we’ll just have to wait and see. No bets though

On Sunday we will be taking Linzy back to Jo’burg to spend the day with the German Shepherd club- where we may participate in some of the exercises. The breeder thinks that she will do well in the show ring… so we will give it a try and see. DH will be going out of town for about 3 weeks so it will help fill up the time.

Well that’s about all for now, of course since we still don’t have high speed Internet, so no pictures … but as always there will be more later.

Beth

3 comments:

  1. Woo-hoo! The sewing machine will be there in a few days! Some projects! I actually really got started quilting when my husband started traveling much of the time about eight years ago. Now he is home mostly, but the quilting addition stuck.

    Have you ever shown a dog before? I did obedience classes with our Shar-peis many years ago, and it was lots of fun. They were not show dogs at all though. With the pug, we haven't taken him to school (and he is only moderately well-behaved...and he house trained Us to take him out regularly for walks).

    It's good to hear from you! Hope the boxes show up Monday.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a bummer that the fast (air) shipment has taken almost as long as the slow (sea) shipping.

    I think that maybe Axel just needed to get used to the idea of a sibling. I know I'm still getting used to having a little brother...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like the children are getting along now. That's good for you. When I leave Pretoria, we have to keep in touch and maybe do a quilt project together. That would be cool. I have learned so much about quilting from you since you arrived. I can see you now tomorrow morning. Christmas bells are ringing! See you soon. ~Jan~

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a comment- big or small.... I love hearing what the pictures say to you too.