My kids are growing up. :(

Not my trouble making little strawberry blonde (technically she is growing but it's not the same!) - my puppies are six weeks old today! We took them in at three days old, began supplement feeding them at one week, and at 11 days became full time bottle feeding parents. Our entire litter survived which given the issues we had to deal with from their mama, the fact that they were hand reared, and that they spent their first two days of life in general population at a filthy shelter, is awesome.

(me playing with Arya, Jorah, and Cersei - ignore the pjs & the bad angle, R cannot take a decent picture of me if his life depended on it)

This is also bittersweet for us as this is, in reality, the end of fostering for us. We've waivered back and forth in large part due to distance and politics but now thanks to our next door neighbor, we've had to make the decision we perhaps weren't really ready for. We have an odd history with this neighbor (they were the ones who flooded our house while we were in escrow, we had parking wars of sorts with them due to our roommate/best friend wanting to park in front of our home and them feeling since they have six cars, they should have full right to park in front of our house at all times because "they were here first") and about two weeks ago she came over and wildly accused me of bringing home "sick dogs" that "infect the entire neighorhood" as her dog was showing signs of kennel cough. KC is in reality the canine common cold - it can be transmited by carrying it on your shoe from visit a vet, a park, a dog beach, etc... but I said yes, sure, it could have been one of my fosters and even though you claim your dogs are vaccined, I'll pay your vet bills. She made a sound of digust and said she wants us to stop "bringing home every stray" and told me she insists that we stop fostering after this litter... now, my dogs don't bark. I clean up after them every single day. I am a good pet parent but this is breaking my heart.

Just to show us how serious she is about being an epic pain in the ass, we were specifically excluded from the street's 4th of July block party. That's right - no one invited us and when other neighbors questioned why we weren't partying (including swimming at the next door neighbor's pool), they were shushed. Having all of your neighbors next door, peeking over your fence, questioning you as to why you're not there, squirting you with squirt guns.... yep, it put me in a FOUL mood. R blew off our family because he was told the block was doing an informal BBQ so we pretty much spent our 4th alone, which allowed us to work on the house (like installing a mist system in the dogs' run) and baking (carrot cake & cookies with oreos inside).

On July 28th, I will have been a puppy foster parent for ten years. :( R is now pushing for us to keep one of the puppies. We would have kept the mama except she is hell bent on eating our yorkie and that is a no-go. IF (and I mean major if) we keep a puppy, we'll be keeping Arya:

And because I like to keep my life rolling in a deep layer of drama, I have court next Wednesday to go after my ex-H for contempt of court for not paying on the settlement (including fees now a little bit shy of $20k). Of course, three days after he was served I got this little gem via email:

"So i know i have been a terrible ex-husband for the last two years and i have put you through a lot of BS! I know all of this and i'm sorry. now i know that doesnt make up for everything i have done, but its a start. I writing this because i have gotten all of the letters, paperwork, and whatnot over the past few months and i'm truly sorry i made you go through all of this stuff. I'll be in town in the area soon and when i'm there i would like to sit and talk. I have a few things i would like to talk to you about (not concerning the settlement) once i have gotten through all of that, then i will talk about payment arrangements and moving forward with the settlement, so you can finally move past this. i hope all is well and you have a good 4th. Let me know if you are ok with this, if you're not thats fine too."

It's nice to see that three years of therapy has paid off - I never responded. I have no desire to play into his "if you give me what I want, I'll let you think I'll give you what you want" games. This should be interesting.