Friday Things
1. Mr. Duke hit a major milestone since last Friday – he slept through the night for the first time! And he has slept through the night every night since. It’s like magic! It was the first time in nearly two months that one of us weren’t getting out of bed in the middle of the night to take him out. Now that it’s getting super cold at night, I’m even more appreciative of his newfound love of sleep.
In the past week, Duke has discovered the skylights in our family room. He’s obsessed with them at night, when he sees the reflections of us sitting on the couch, the glow of our phones, and my laptop. He growls and barks at the skylight incessantly; it was cute at first, but now we’re ready for him to get over it ;-)
2. Speaking of our pups, we are seriously considering getting a Roomba. Two Golden Retrievers are creating an insane amount of fur and yard debris on our floors on a daily basis. I’m just wondering how often we’d need to empty it and if would actually be worth it. Does anyone with high-shedding dogs have one?
3. Christmas is exactly two months away! I love this!
4. If you’re into homemade food gifts for the holidays, you have to check out these free printable chalkboard-style labels from Lia Griffith… How awesome are these?!
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5. I’ve seen a lot of folks make really cute labels for homemade gifts with the Silhouette Cameo. Here’s the thing… I’m not at all crafty. As in, not at ALL. However, with the holidays coming up, I’m wondering if it would be a fun little toy for gifts. Would something like this be worth it for someone that doesn’t do any crafting?
6.The increasingly cold mornings and evenings have me craving a warm, plush robe. Do you have any recommendations? I don’t think I’ve ever bought a robe for myself!
7. Since we’re on the subject of robes, I’m also on the lookout for new slippers. Can you tell I’m more than ready for the cozy days of winter?! Right now I have these bookmarked: Sorel Tremblant Blanket, Sorel Nakiska, UGG Ansley, and UGG Rylan. Any thoughts/recommendations?
8. Confession: my Chief Culinary Consultant and I watch Eastbound and Down on HBO. The show is totally ridiculous and I feel like I might lose some brain cells every time I watch it, but I can’t help but find it hysterical. Please tell me I’m not the only one!
9. You have until midnight tonight to enter to win a $300 Zappos.com gift card – don’t forget to enter!
10. TGIF! Best buddies and twins!
Michelle,
I don’t think I could use a Roomba, my dog is so skittish she would be terrified. I don’t think the Roomba would have enough capacity for all the hair. My old dog was a german shepherd and he shed clumps of hair constantly. You could vacuum and wash the floors upstairs and downstairs and an hour later you would have doggie tumbleweeds rolling down the hall.
Annamaria
I love your Goldens – they are so cute!
Your sweet dogs are so cute! My daughter has a golden with long white hair (beautiful dog) and an open floor plan. They bought a Roomba and ended up returning it. It just didn’t do the job with a major shedder. When she comes to visit, there is so much dog hair (we have a chocolate lab) but she leaves clumps everywhere! I think they ended up with a regular vacuum that works well on hardwoods. I think it’s a Dyson, but I’m not sure.
We have a NEATO XV-21 and LOVE it. It comes with a long magnetic strip you can use to cordon off any area you may not want it to vacuum. You can also get software updates for the NEATO when improvements come out (under the support tab on NeatoRobotics website). Great little machine!!
You don’t have to be crafty to have a silhouette! I saw today that consumercrafts.com has 20% off scrapbooking supplies (including the silhouette) this weekend. With free shipping too I think I might get one too!
I have the UGG Ansleys in mahogany and love them. I mainly wear them around the house but have worn them to the store on occasion and don’t look ridiculous in them. Soooo warm.
I know that Bearpaw makes slippers. They’re a lot like Uggs, and super cute! I have a pair of Bearpaw boots, and I love them, they are supposed to be pretty durable, and I would think you’d want that with a puppy in the house! I hope you find this useful.
I have a pure bred yellow female lab and we feed her blue diamond/blue buffalo dog food, which cuts down the amount of shedding to the point that we only have to vacuum once every three days or so. Its one of the best dog foods out there! I highly recommend it to anyone. We have a dyson vacuum that we love and gets up all the pet hair plus what our 4 children make a mess of. We also comb her nightly when she is shedding her coats to help get rid of the extra hair faster, but she isn’t in her shedding season right now. I hope this helps!
I have and love the UGG Coquettes. Great support! Unfortunately, my goldens love them too. They leave every other pair of shoes/slippers alone, but the fur is the attractant to the UGGs. I have to keep them on a shelf now when I don’t wear them…otherwise, you may find some tufts of fur pulled out in various places. So, I’d recommend the UGGS, but I’d keep them away from the goldens. :)
Duke is getting so big! I always look forward to your Friday posts so I can see pictures of your dogs!
i bought the ugg slippers for my mom and they were so soft i wanted to keep them for myself – luckily her feet are WAY SMALLER than mine so that I couldn’t keep them – pro tip – if you have tiny feet you can save a ton of money by purchasing the ‘kids size’ (she is a size 6 in womens)
LL Bean’s Wicked Good Slippers are as good as the name suggests. I’ve had my current pair for 5 years, I wear them every day except during the hottest part of the summer, and they look essentially new. Best slippers money can buy!
http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/23102?feat=511913-CL1&page=bean-s-wicked-good-clog-women-s
I’m on my 2nd pair of these LL Bean slippers, love them! I had the first pair for 6 years. http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/52326?feat=503422-GN2&page=women-s-hearthside-slippers
I have the sheepskin slippers from LL bean. Beat slippers ever!
Einstein and Duke are both so gorgeous! Congrats on Duke sleeping through the night…perhaps the cooler weather makes him less likely to get out of his cozy bed, too!
I bought a Silhouette Cameo last fall, but never broke it out of the box until this month. I was afraid it would suck me in and be a time vacuum and I had SO MANY unfinished projects I didn’t want to leave on the sidelines. I’ve done one project with it so far, and made a few cards (I haven’t made cards in AGES). Everything was really simple and didn’t require very much skill at all. I think if you have the ability to handle the printable labels, you’re ahead of the game. I’ve been a member of a Silhouette group on Facebook for a year, and it’s very helpful for advice and for seeing exactly what the Cameo can do. I would totally get one if I were you!
L.L.Bean has great robes in Polartec-type material. Mine is floor length and rosy red and so cozy warm. I love it.
We have the Neato, similar to Roomba, and I would highly recommend it. It actually got a lot better reviews than the Roomba (my hubby and I are research junkies when it comes to buying stuff). Although we don’t have heavy shedding dogs (we have two mini doxies but the white one does shed a little more than an average weiner dog) we recently put in dark wood floors that show EVERYTHING and this little robot has been my sanity when it comes to keeping the floors clean. I can probably run it about 2-3 times before having to empty it and each times its vaccuming 4-5 rooms.
I think that you should check out Padraig slippers – they are incredibly warm and comfortable!
http://www.padraigcottage.com/
I have ugg slippers similar to the rylan, maybe the same just a couple years old, but I love them. So warm and cozy they have definitely held up, I wore then to class in college all the time. My sister has one of those vacuums and is obsessed with it. She has a great dane and a 2 year old and she loves coming home to a freshly vacummed house. Give it a few times to get everything up but then when it runs every day it’s a more reasonable pick up gets everything
I love my LL Bean Wicked Good slippers. So warm and soft and cozy. I bought my 1st pair in 1998 and my second in 2006 (!) I’m hoping the hubs gets me a new pair this Christmas :)
Oh my, the picture of the two of them together at the door is adorable. Nothing better than puppy love! I might be strange but I can’t get into the robe thing. My mom bought me a nice one when I went to college but I feel so much more comfortable, and warm, in oversized sweat pants and sweatshirts.
I bought my plush terri robe at BB&B, and I really like it because it’s like putting a towel on after the shower. But, it’s heavy. In the summer, I switch to a shorter, waffle weave robe. If I were going to do it again, I’d buy a hotel robe:
http://www.westin-hotelsathome.com/category.aspx?robes
So worth it.
Love, love, love these slippers! Think I’m on my third pair. They are toasty warm and when my feet are warm, the rest of me seems to stay warmer too.
http://www.zappos.com/haflinger-as-classic-slipper-grey
Also, love, love, love the pics of your dogs. Duke looks huge…until you see him snoozing next to Einstein! They make my Fridays.
I love my REI down booties (http://www.rei.com/product/804541/rei-down-booties-womens), they’re insulated, water resistant, and fleece lined with a semi-stiff, non-skid sole. We lovingly refer to them as sleeping bags for your feet.
My kids love goldens. They had one that got out during a storm and unfortunately we never saw him again. I love those labels,thanks for sharing.Glad you are able to get a full nights sleep now. Having a puppy is like having a new baby. Lol
For a great robe at a great price check out – gulp, I know – Costco! Last year I got an uber soft (microfiber?) robe for under $20. OMG, even though it’s big and bulky, it weighs almost nothing and is like wearing a cloud. It’s amazingly soft and ridiculously warm, and comes in a good selection of colors. It was a big seller last year, so I’m pretty sure they’ll carry it again this year.
I named our 2012 Dodge Challenger (white with red pinstriping) La Flama Blanca….Kenny Powers is the sh$t!! I highly recommend reading the letter Kenny Powers “wrote” to Tim Tebow a couple years back…hilarious! (you can google it) As the proud owner/lover of a Roomba for 3 years, here is my advice/experience:
Roomba works best on wood/tile floors, not so much on carpet and works best with an open floor plan. We have a couple throw rugs and kitchen mats and have no problems with it getting stuck but none have tassles/fringe; that would be a problem. I schedule mine to run everyday while I am at work, I have a 16 lb pug that sheds like none other (seriously, the amount of fur that comes off this dog is UNREAL) and I have to empty the canister everyday. It takes approximately 10 seconds so I always do it as I head to bed. Apparently there is the option to buy a larger canister after-market, this will be on my Christmas list…You will still need to use your regular vacuum, this is ok. Roomba might miss some spots and like others have said, it doesn’t always get the area right next to an area rug, especially if it is very thick, but if your floors look like mine (HAIRY!!!) and you were having to sweep or vacuum EVERY.SINGLE. DAY, the Roomba is a godsend. Now I only need to bust out the Dyson once a week for a thorough cleaning. As for the amount of time it takes Roomba to clean one room vs just running the vacuum, my opinion is who cares how long it takes, YOU DONT HAVE TO LIFT A FINGER! This might be annoying to folks who work at/stay at home during the day and have to listen to it run, but if you are gone most of the day, and you come home to a clean floor that you didn’t have to clean….who cares?!?! I should also mention, my dog has had 2 mistakes in the house in the last 3 years and Roomba smeared poop all over the place both times. I had to completely dismantle Roomba to clean it out and I still stand by it! Haha!!!
I swear, your photos of those two characters are absolutely adorable. And you just might want to make one of them into a Christmas card for friends and relatives. You could even do a collage of them or make a calendar. They are simply gorgeous and I know from having one live next door to us, they are the perfect dog for adults and children. We have had Old English Sheepdogs and still have two, one female and one male. The male was a rescue, never trained, so he has been our challenge for a good while. He was never trained to “leave it” when it came to his food so he is very possessive of it and when you give him a treat you have to count your fingers. But he is gradually responding to our commands. He does a beautiful “sit” just anytime but we have to be careful with his food. Still we love him and treat him just like our others. I’m so glad we were able to give him a good home.
Re UGG slippers: I have the Mandie, which has leather ties that keep coming untied. Other than that I love them. I’d suggest the Ansley from your list.
L.L. Bean wicked good slippers are THE way to go!
http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/18664?feat=511913-GN1&page=women-s-wicked-good-moccasins