Clutter My World: March 2011

Alex, Mercury and Keith

Mercury looking at Keith

Mercury as a puppy!

Hi everyone! I have to brag just a little bit....I am so proud of my daughter, Alex, for raising a Guide Dog puppy that actually graduated! That's not an easy feat...approx. 50% of the guide dog puppies don't make it to graduation so when you have one that does, it's quite a wonderful feeling. Alex started raising Guide Dogs when she was in 7th grade after hearing the a blind woman speak about her life with her Guide Dog. This woman was the sister of one of Alex's middle school teachers at Centennial Middle School and she inspired Alex so much, that Alex came home that day and said that she wanted to raise a Guide Dog. I kind of nodded my head and thought..oh my gosh, that sounds like a lot of work...and then tabled that discussion! A month or so later, I was at a training session at the Humane Society for people who wanted to foster puppies (yes, we were going to do that...shorter duration, cute, darling puppies) when I met a woman/puppy raiser from the Boulder Guide Dog Puppy Raiser group...a wonderful group of volunteer puppy raisers for Guide Dogs for the Blind. Jill talked to me about raising a guide dog, the sense of accomplishment, the paying it forward aspect, how rewarding it was...that I went home and told Alex that I was ready to help her raise a Guide Dog puppy. Mind you, I said "help" not raise! Anyway, that started our journey with raising Guide Dogs...and to date, we have raised 3....or should I say, Alex, has raised 3. We co-raised our first one, Bosley, with a classmate of Alex's. He was a beautiful Black Lab with a stubborn streak and didn't make it to graduation. Our second one, Rufus, was also co-raised and he was a darling, lovable Yellow Lab that due to excessive flatulence (yes, flatulence!) and excessive drooling, and stress induced colitis...didn't make it either. Then along came Mercury, a darling, energetic black lab that Alex raised all by herself (with some help from Mom and Dad!). Many of you met Mercury at Clutter...he was often sitting behind the cash stand with his nose out in front...observing all who came in and went out. It wasn't easy to raise Mercury, Alex had to wake up with him in the middle of the night when he had "issues", she had to clean out kennels that had been soiled (fortunately, this didn't happen often), she had to take him to school and the movies and the mall, etc. etc. She had to feed him and walk him and care for him. She had to endure the teasing of classmates when they said that he was going to fail because he was so unruly. It's a big job and at times, we wondered whether it was worth it....and now we know it is! Last Saturday we were fortunate to go to his graduation in Portland, Oregon at the beautiful Guide Dogs for the Blind Campus. We met Mercury's new "handler", the man, who in a year will be considered his owner, if all goes well. Keith Bundy has been blind from birth and he is the Associate Dean of Students at South Dakota State University, where he is charge of the counseling office and he also teaches computer skills to disabled students, he hunts and he goes to sporting events, he's active on Facebook....and he does all this blind. He has had 2 previous Guide Dogs and Mercury is his third. Guide Dogs only work for about 8-10 years, then they just get a bit too old and they retire and live out the rest of their lives as pet dogs. Keith is a wonderful man with a wonderful family...a loving wife and 4 handsome sons. Not only is he the Associate Dean but he is also a pastor. We came away from this experience knowing that Mercury is going to have a wonderful life and Keith's life is going to be made that much more wonderful because of Mercury! I am so proud of my daughter and of the wonderful, darling, energetic black lab that she raised! If you want to find out more about Guide Dogs and raising them, check out the Guide Dog for the Blind website: www.guidedogs.com. You can also check out the Boulder Puppy Raiser group by going to this website: www.boulderpuppies.org

While there is no longer a guide dog puppy at Clutter (who knows, maybe someday we'll raise another one!), there are a lot of other great things....check out all of the pictures below and come on in to see them in person!

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Hi everyone! Well...my third and last daughter will be graduating from Boulder High this May and we are in the midst of that much anticipated but nevertheless nerve-wracking college decision! Alex applied to 11 schools and while Ted and I have our favorite (University of Michigan-our alma mater), we realize that this decision must be Alex's and Alex's alone! No pressure from us, honey!

Speaking of the University of Michigan...we thought we would give Alex a taste of Michigan in the winter so we planned a college visit for the U of M Campus Day during President's weekend. Well, wouldn't you know it but we had beautiful blue skies and sunny days for the first part of the weekend and got out just before a winter storm hit on Sunday afternoon! It was great to see that while some things have changed in the 30 years since we graduated, mch has stayed the same...my sorority house (ADPi) is still as wonderful as it was when I was there and the girls seem just as nice as all of us were (ok, I'm not too modest!), Ted's fraternity house (Fiji) is still standing although after seeing the interior, I can't imagine how...it definitely looks like a house with 50-60 teenage boys/young men living in it with no adult influence...yuck! "The Rock" is still at the corner of Hill and Washtenaw and it must have at least 1000 layers of paint on it...the Diag is still bustling but missing the craziness of Crazy Jake (an icon when we went to school in the 70's), Mason Hall still has the Fishbowl, the UGLI is still ugly although it's now named the Shapiro Library, West Engin still welcomes you to the diag even though the Engineering school is now up on North Campus, Ulrich's, the bookstore, is still there although their inventory seemed a bit low, the Law Library is still the quietest place on campus, and the Michigan Union, the gathering place for students, is still the same place where John F. Kennedy started the Peace Corps!

It was a great visit for Alex and Ted and I....2 of us looking back at the memories of 4 great years (in Ted's case...5!) and one of us looking forward towards all of the memories that are yet to come!

While Alex's mind is cluttered with decisions yet to be made, Clutter is cluttered with wonderful furniture! Here is just some of the inventory we have in the store...we hope you come and check it all out...