What to do on New Years Eve? I just can’t seem to figure out what to do in the twin cities on new years eve that won’t cost a bundle of money. I think about staying in and making food but I can’t seem to find any good recipes. Ideas?
Update: Tree Spray
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Well it has been a couple of days where I can see if our cat is truly deterred by the Boundary spray. It seems as long as we spray it every day it does work but the minute it starts wearing off she is back in that tree. I don’t think it will deter her in the long run sadly.
Cats in Christmas Trees
Well if you have read my blog at all you know I have two cats which most of the time is wonderful. This year though we were a little nervous. Chunk our newest addition is having his first year with a Christmas tree. We were hoping and praying that he was nothing like our other cat Sassy who absolutely loves to climb Christmas trees. Can you imagine trying to fight off two cats from climbing and playing in a Christmas tree? My worst nightmare. For the past 2 years that we have had sassy we have had a fake Christmas tree. Whenever we put this tree up she gets very excited because she knows what she will soon be doing. Climbing! We have tried spraying her with water, yelling, and locking her away but nothing has seemed to work. So when I realized this year I was going to have to deal with two cats in the tree I was a little worried. We put the tree up two weekends ago and luckily so far Chunk is not interested in climbing it just eating it. The other night though Sassy decided to climb the tree all the way to the top while we were trying to sleep. We heard her and as my husband went to get her out all I could hear was the whole tree shaking and ornaments falling to the ground. I worry that one of these days she is going to tip the tree over… So today I went to Petsmart and found a spray called "Boundary". It says supposedly all I need to do is spray the tree and the floor around it to deter the cats from going in that area. So far here is what I have found…. Sassy went over to the tree about an hour after I sprayed it and tried to go under to climb but she sniffed something and turned and ran the other way…. So so far this seems to work. Tonight will be the true test. One thing I have to say though is this stuff doesn’t smell the best but if you can get over a little time of not smelling good and putting it on every day it seems so far to work. I will update tomorrow with the true test results from tonight!
Tires Plus
So about a week ago I bought 4 brand new tires from Tires Plus. I came out of the transaction several dollars lighter but was figuring that I would have great tires for the snow and just in general. I kept that idea until this past Saturday where I barely hit the edge of a pot hole going around a curve and instantaneously my front right tire was completely flat. Not fun when I realized my dollars just went down the drain. So my husband and I got to learn how to change a tire (not a hard task by any means) and then we drove home and called Tires Plus hoping there would be some recourse so that I didn’t have to pay completely for a new tire. I called them and the first thing they state was that if I would have bought roadside hazard insurance it would have been completely covered. I felt my heart sink because I was never offered that. They said to bring the car in though and they would work something out. So I brought it in and told them I was never offered the roadside hazard insurance. The manager took blame for that and said that because I wanted such particular tire he never thought to offer me it. He stated though he would work me a deal and also get the roadside hazard insurance added to my tires. He never said what kind of deal though so I was a little nervous. So when I went back on Monday to pick up my tire I was very very surprised and happy to see that he didn’t charge me anything for the tire or to put it on the only thing I got charged for was the roadside hazard insurance. Let me tell you thats GREAT Customer Service…. I would recommend them any day.
How to teach a Cat?
I’ve decided some cats are born smart and some cats are just missing that key brain cell. Take our cats for example, we have chunk who eats everything in site (from human food to cat food) and is a complete lover but dumb as a doornail and Sassy who is very picky in everything from when you pet her to what she eats but is a very quick learner. We trained our cats the same way with a variety of tools; from saying no to using a water bottle. Sassy got it within a few weeks…. Chunk on the other hand just doesn’t get it. He tries to get at our food and no matter how many times we spray him, lock him up, or tap him on the nose and say no he just doesn’t get it. I’m at a loss. Maybe I just need to accept that he doesn’t have th brain capacity to learn but then how is he different then Sassy? Hmmm!
David’s Bridal
I have always heard bad things about David’s Bridal but so far I had not had that bad experience. I wasn’t overally impressed when I had gone shopping for my wedding dress a year ago but nothing to vent about but that changed a week ago. My sister was shopping for her wedding dress. She had forgotten to make an appointment with David’s Bridal but decided to stop and see if she could look anyways because she had seen a dress in their magazine that she absolutely loved. Boy was that a mistake. We walked in and were rejected immediately but ok they told us to come back at 4 after my sister informed them she was from out of town. So we came back at 4 and they still made it known that this was a complete inconvenience. They told her to go and pull out the dresses she was interested in and they would bring them back. She got someone to work with who my sister pointed out the dress she absolutely was dying to try on. The lady dismissed this and went and grabbed a different dress for which my sister had no interest in. The lady informed my sister she was just trying to get her size right. They she said she was going to grab some more. My mom and I then saw her putting away the dresses my sister had pulled to try on. We went back and were then waiting to see what she would bring my sister. We waited like 15 minutes before another sales person came and informed us that the other lady was on a phone and would be back shortly. So in the meantime we tried on Bridesmaids dresses. My sister found one she loved for us but we were not sure if it came in our color so we went to the front desk and asked. There the lady that was supposed to be helping my sister was standing around talking about how she was the manager of the store and venting about the phone call she had received. We went back to my sister (this was now 30 minutes after we had arrived and she had tried on one dress that she didn’t like) and we left. We were completely frustrated that no one after telling us specifically to come back at 4 would help us. Talk about terrible customer service especially since that was from the manager.
Northwest-Frustrating
As mentioned in the earlier post my husband and I were having issues with Northwest Airlines and getting our tickets booked using our gift certificates. After my last post we called and got our tickets booked with the gift certificate and the lady who I booked them through said I would receive an e-ticket shortly. Much to my dismay the next day I didn’t have anything. A week later I still didn’t have anything and they hadn’t charged my credit card. So I emailed the company telling them about all my problems I had been going through. After much email back and forth they said my tickets should arrive in 24-48 hours. Ha yea right they would. Nope another week passed and I was not happy at all because its now 3 weeks till we fly to St Louis and still nothing. I decided I would give them one last chance to redeem themselves and issue the tickets before I would look elsewhere for new tickets. I sent them a scathing email and threatened to look elsewhere and what do you know I got an immediate response stating my tickets would be issued shortly and this time they were. They never apologized or explained why I went through so much hassle. All I can say is that this time I will think twice about booking through them. As I am not impressed with their service.
Hot Air Balloon Rides
This past weekend we went on a hot air balloon ride with Balloon Ascensions. I have to say anyone looking for a balloon company in Minnesota I would highly reccomend this company to them. This is a family run company and the owner(balloon driver) is also a United Airline Pilot. He was very careful in the wind conditions which made me feel like he knew what he was doing. He has flown all over the world and normally when flying will fly with people from one of three locations, Shakopee, Prior Lake or Jordan. He says that he normally flies low to intermediate height so if you are looking to go way up this is not for you but it still was a very memorable experience. He also trains people on how to fly a hot air balloon if that is something you want to do. It was something I would definitely do again!
Laser Declawing
We recently got our second cat laser declawed. Our first cat it went pretty smoothly with only a slight infection afterwards. We had highly reccomended it because its supposed to be significantly less painful for cats and when they come home the only thing special you need to do for them is use a special kind of litter. They are not supposed to have any pain and there is not supposed to be any blood or treatment after the surgery. With our first cat that was pretty much the case but with our second cat after 3 days he was still favoring his paws and therefore we needed to take him back in. He is now on morphine and has broken open 4 of his wounds since his surgery. He doesn’t seem to care and I probably worry more then he notices it as it doesn’t slow him down. If I had to look at reccomending laser declawing I would still reccomend it I just would warn you even if there isn’t supposed to be any problems after the surgery it all depends on each cat that has it done some will and some won’t but it definitely does not seem to slow the cats down at all.
Breath Mints for Cats
Over the past two weeks we have been trying different ideas on our cats of how to get their breath to smell better. We have tried 2 different methods one called Greenies for Cats (which comes in four flavors: Salmon, Liver, Chicken, and Fish) and one called Pit’r Pat. Pit’r Pat comes in a little tin like you would buy mints in at the grocery store and the "mints" are in the shape of fish. It doesn’t say what flavor they are but Liver is the prevalent ingredient. When I opened this one up they smelled terrible, but I thought I would give it a try anyways if it would do the job. I gave one to each of our cats (one which eats everything from human food to dog food, and one who is very particular and will only eat certain brands of food). Sassy who is so particular sniffed it but would not eat it and Chunk who eats everything gobbled it up and looked for more. I did not notice an improvement in his breath though. With Greenies when I gave these to each of our cats they both gobbled them up and come running any time I go near the drawer where I keep them. I think it helped somewhat with their breath also. These also did not smell nearly as bad as the Pit’r Pat. So out of the two items I would recommend trying greenies for cats if you have a cat who has bad breath.