Flying with Fido: Part 2

I had originally written a post about flying with Bentley here. I was very anxious and there was a lot of prep work to be done. I had called the airline multiple times to make sure I had every detail covered and thought we were good to go.

Within 1 minute of stepping up to the counter to check him in, they were telling us he couldn't fly. His crate didn't have screws, so it wasn't safe. Luckily, a manager came over and said it was totally fine and we could just use zip ties. The next hurdle was the temperature at our destination. It was 19 degrees there and the cutoff to fly an animal is 20 degrees. I really had to convince him to let Bentley fly.  The gate guy huffed and puffed the entire time and I swear he was purposely taking his sweet time so we would miss our flight. Luckily we made it just as they were boarding, but not without a few more hurdles at the gate. Thankfully, we made it home safely (it was snowing like crazy when we landed and didn't even know we were near the ground until we touched down!)

The trip home was so much worse. We got to the airport at 4:30am (when it opens) and again, almost didn't make our flight. Once again, with 2 minutes of getting to the gate check, the woman at the desk was saying he couldn't fly. We didn't have a Certificate of Acclimation. This was not even mentioned when we flew home, so I had no idea what they were talking about. Once they realized there was a statement written by the vet saying he "should be fine" they thought that might be sufficient, BUT it didn't say "will be fine." Well duh, no vet is going to state that an animal WILL be fine, its just not reasonable. She had to go check with her supervisor which took a good 30 minutes. Then he didn't have a rabies certificate, but he did have a health certificate that stated he had a rabies shot. Not good enough. Back to the supervisor. The gate agent was also one of the worst customer service reps I have ever encountered. We finally made it through with about 2 minutes to spare and I'm happy that we made it home in one piece.

I have a feeling that the airline we flew with was an isolated experience, but because of it, I will probably never fly with Bentley again. Everyone we encountered was so rude and looked at us like we had 3 heads, like we were the ones who were out of control for wanting to fly with a dog! It is also worth mentioning that my brother works for this airline and he had checked everything to make sure we were all set. He does this every day for a living and couldn't believe all the trouble we had.

Our Weekend

B and I had a pretty uneventful weekend. We worked yesterday, but decided to treat ourselves to dinner at Ford's Garage. Um, delicious. They deep fry their pretzels. I would have eaten my weight and then some in deep fried pretzels. Genius!

Today ended up being a nice day, so B decided to take the boat out, while I had a shopping day. I was having Target withdrawals, so I grabbed some Starbucks and spent a good hour in Target. I found so many gems today, and everything was on sale. I've been eyeing some Nate Berkus stuff lately, so I finally made the plunge, which wasnt even bad because it was all on sale!

 Bentley will look great in this frame. Even better-using it as a birthday gift for B!

 I also found these two pillows. Indecisive on which to get (if any). We have a black, leather couch (can you say mantown?). Suggestions? Opinions?

I also went to Pier 1 and bought this for the guest bathroom:

The picture does absolutely no justice, but I also bought blue and turquoise sea glass to put inside, it looks awesome.

The low temperature here is sunny SW Florida this week is going to 38. Say what?! That's like snow temperature. I'm not complaining, but I'm pretty sure all of FL is going into hibernation this week.

Pulled Pork Chili

B and I went to a truck pull in the fall and had the most amazing chili of our lives at this little stand there. It had pulled pork in it, which would be my last meal if I ever had one, so I was all over this chili. I had to recreate it. As my first recipe on the blog, I figured it needed to be something epic. Its the recipe that gets the most compliments and it won first place out of about 20 other chili recipes in a cookoff!

Ingredients:

1lb of ground beef 

1 tub of pulled pork (its in a red tub, in the freezer/fridge section where the mashed potatoes are. Homemade pulled pork would be better im sure, but I havent mastered that recipe yet)

1 Chili Seasoning packet 

1 small can of diced jalepenos or green chilis 

1 small can of tomato paste 

1 small can of baked beans 

1 can of black beans

1 can of cannelloni beans 

1 TBSP of onion powder

1 TBSP of Season All

 

Directions:

1. Brown ground meat in large pot. 

2. Add everything else to the pan (drain and rinse the black and cannelloni beans). 

3. Let cook for however long you want, I recommend at least an hour so everything can mix together. You might need to add some water or chicken broth to thin it out as it cooks so its not too thick. 

 4. Serve with cheddar cheese and sour cream. I've also been eating mine with fritos instead of a spoon. Dont judge.

Some things I should note: I have a weird thing about textures, which is why I dont cook with onions, only onion powder. Real onions would be just as good in this recipe. I also hate tomatoes, but a can of diced tomatoes would also be excellent. Also, the baked beans seem a bit weird, but the sweetness goes so well with the pulled pork. The glory of chili is that you can put anything you like in it, its so versatile! The pulled pork though is crucial, so I highly recommend leaving that in. Enjoy!

What I Do

Happy New Year! I'm not one to make resolutions and have never been a huge fan of celebrating big on New Year's Eve. That's not to say I don't like the holiday, its just not my thing.

I thought I would write a post about what I do for a living. Its a pretty huge part of my life and in the summer, it consumes my life (consume is an understatement actually). So here it goes!

I went to college and graduated with my degree in Special Ed. It is my passion and I absolutely love kids! When I met B, I got sucked into the world of bounce houses. At the time, he was renting bounce houses pretty low key, 1 or 2 a weekend, but by the second summer we were together, things were getting a little crazier. Fast forward 5 years and here we are, running a pretty successful inflatable rental company.

The first thing people say when we tell them we own a bounce house company is, "Oh! That must be so fun!" I can see how an outsider would think that. How is renting bounce houses and water slides NOT fun?! Although the job has its perks, it is extremely stressful. Now I know that there are jobs that are much more stressful and high risk (medical field, military, etc.), but people underestimate how stressful our business can be. Most customers have no idea what goes into getting them their inflatable. There is a tremendous amount of planning that goes into every rental, and it seems that in the area we live in, many people wait until the day before their party to order, causing some serious headaches on our end. Imagine trying to deliver 20 inflatables, all about 15 min. driving distance away from each other all before 11am. Nightmare. Summer months are chaotic to say the least and I often forget to eat, let alone sleep. So why is it even worth it you ask? Well, we have learned a lot over the last 5 years and have put many systems in place to at least try to make thing run smoothly. The other major perk: We get to live in FL for 6 months (our off season). So working 80+ hours a week seems worth it while we sit on the beach in the middle of January.

Our business has tested me in so many ways. Customers get under my skin more than I like to admit. I take it personally. I helped build this business, so when we get someone who is rude or mean to us, I have a hard time not falling apart. We have also given up our summers. While everyone has BBQ's and goes on vacations, we almost never even get a day off. I have a bunch of friends who are planning to get married this summer and while I will make the weddings (barely), anything scheduled in June is impossible, meaning I miss bridal showers/bachelorette parties. I always get the feeling from friends and even family that they just don't understand that I cant take a day off like normal people. June is a 30 day period where I absolutely cannot leave. There is simply such a high volume of parties, which inevitably means problems and I am usually working over 100 hours a week in June. This is always hard. People almost never understand that I cant leave and I just cant explain it unless you spend a week with me.

To add to it all, I run this business with my boyfriend. It's his company, but at this point, I manage it, make the big decisions, he mostly fronts the money. Running a stressful business while starting and maintaining a relationship is hard. Like really hard. We have been in some seriously trying time together, but our relationship is rock solid because of it.

Phew! Glad to get that off my chest! It sounds like I hate the business and at times, I do. But I love what we do, and am SO proud that we built this business from the ground up, all by ourselves. I NEVER thought I could run a business. It has been such a huge learning curve for us.