First Trip with The Dog House

It's been a crazy busy week, but tonight we are prepped and ready to head out on our first real adventure of "dry camping" with the Dog House. We'll spend 3 days in the mountains east of us, although how long it may take us to back in to our camp site is yet to be seen. We have some cash and wine with us to bribe the other campers (who will most certainly be entertained by our pitiful attempts) to park the darn thing for us if dark starts to set in!

On another note, this week, my Board of Directors and I hired a new Executive Director to replace me. That means that by the end of October, I should be able to reduce my hours to 30/week for a few weeks, and hopefully down to 24 or so in the coming months. FINALLY, I'll get some time to focus more efforts on the Barkery. The pushed-back timing does put a cramp in our plans to come back east,though, in the coming months. We'll see.

Have a wonderful weekend, and stay tuned for some pictures of our adventures on Sunday!!

June Glee

This may sound crazy, but we've been LOVING the weather the past few weeks (sorry to you fellow San Diegan's who hate this). We've been experiencing what the weathermen call "June Gloom", and it is wonderful. We typically have so many sunny days that when we get the good fortune to have natures light covered by clouds, we want to go dancing in the streets....but then we remember that we don't dance, or at least not well! The temps have been in the high 70's to very low 80's, and we are savoring every minute because before we know it, we will be basking in 100+ degree days for the next several months.

When we grew up in upstate NY, sunny days were few and far between. June gloom was year round, along with rain, humidity, snow and ice. It seems odd that these two native New Yorkers pray for a cool, cloudy day, but we do....and we LOVE IT!!

Things are bustling along with the Barkery. We went to our local farmer's market this past weekend, and are preparing to set the stage to be a regular vendor there starting later this summer. We've been welcomed with open arms, since we are the only business in the area to "do what we do".

Today, the woman we hired to do our embroidery on our shirts, visors and hats called to say that a prototype was done and ready for our review. We stopped in late today to check it out (see picture below). We made a few alterations/corrections and selected the final thread colors that will go on the shirts (not at all what you see on the prototype). How exciting! Our new cards, paper and car advertising magnets arrive tomorrow. Another thing we can soon check of the growing list of things to do.

All in all, things are busier than ever, but we are making good progress and just loving the thought that in a few short months, we will get the honor of working together again - day in and day out - in June Gloom or July Fry! Bring it on!!!