I am in a great mood today. We have keys to the new house in hand and so I want to share in my happy mood and decided to throw a $25 Dog Collar Sale!

http://stores.molossermart.com/-strse-91/%27DOG-COLLAR-DEAL-OF/Detail.bok

Have at it!

We’re excited to rock our very first Pinterest Contest! I am happy to announce our “Bully Mart Spring Bling” Pin it to Win it Contest!  Simply create a virtual pin board featuring your favorite Bully Mart products for a chance to win one three prizes for you and a friend. Contest ends 05/05/2012 at 11:59 p.m. CT. Winners will be selected

If you are not yet a pinterest member you can email pinterest@bullymart.com for an invitation.

Peep Game:

Step 1: Follow & Create a Bully Mart Pin Board – Follow Bully Mart on Pinterest at pinterest.com/bullymart. Next, create a “Bully Mart Collars SPRING BLING BOARD” on Pinterest and categorize it under PETS.

Step 2: Pin Your Favorite Bully Mart Items – Visit bullymart.com under our shop section and pin a minimum of 10 of your favorite Bully Mart items. Your first pin MUST be our contest announcement graphic and each pin MUST include the hashtag #BullyMartSpringBling. Tell us which of your family members [fur or skin] would enjoy your favorite picks this spring and where they would rock them if selected.

Step 3: Email your board link to contests@bullymart.com

OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES

1. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR TO WIN.  A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR ODDS OF WINNING.  VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

2. Eligibility.  The Bully Mart Spring Bling Pin it to Win It Contest is open to U.S. residents 18 years old or older at the time of entry; and Canadian residents.

3. Entry.  Open entries from 12:01a.m. (Central Time) on April 23, 2012, and close at 11:59 p.m. (Central Time) on May 5, 2012 (the “Contest Period”).

The following rules apply to each submission:

If you are currently a member of Pinterest, please proceed to Step 1. If you’re not yet on Pinterest and need an invitation please send an email to pinterest@bullymart.com.  Pinterest invitation and membership is not guaranteed by Bully Mart nor is support in the operation of Pinterest.

Step 1:  Once logged into your Pinterest account, follow us on Pinterest at pinterest.com/bullymart and create a “Bully Mart’s Spring Bling Pin It to Win It” Board on Pinterest and categorize the Board under Pets.

Step 2: Pin Your Favorite Bully Mart Items – Visit bullymart.com and pin a minimum of 10 of your favorite Bully Mart shop items, you may pin more if you so choose but a minimum of 10 favorites must be pinned. Your first pin MUST be our contest announcement graphic and each pin MUST include the hashtag #BullyMartSpringBling. Tell us which of your family members would enjoy your favorite picks this spring and where they would be rocked.

Step 3: Email your board link to contests@bullymart.com by the Contest end date for your chance to win one of 3 prizes and gift a collar to a friend.

4. Prizes - Three (3) Winners will be selected from eligible entries. Each Winner shall receive One (1) custom fit leather good from their favorite pins on the Bully Mart Spring Bling board  in addition to picking one friend or pup to gift a BSL BITES item to with our ‘YOU’VE BEEN LICKED’ program.  Winner is responsible for their prize’s shipping charges. Shipping charges are typically around $6.

5. Judging – Winners will be selected on or about May 7th, 2012 from eligible entries. Winners will be selected three ways. two via random generator and one via staff pick. With ‘Staff’ being my family and I J. This includes 6 children and my Husband. Each winner will receive one of their favorite pinned collars on their board in addition to gifting an item to a friend via our ‘YOU’VE BEEN LICKED’ program.

6. Participation – By entering into this contest you agree to be bound by these Official Rules and agree to share pictures of any prize winnings being worn or used on your facebook profile page [should you have one], on our facebook fan page at facebook.com/customdogcollars and on your Pinterest board w/in 30 days of receiving your winnings. By not doing so you forfeit the option to participate in any and all future contests held by Bully Mart.

* Poor sportsmanship will result in immediate disqualification of this and future fun contests held by Bully Mart. *

Good Luck & Happy Pinning!

Part of our new backyard! The serenity of this photo is contradicting to this post but I WILL BE EXCITED and refuse to be soured in our HUGE accomplishment.

Some of you may not find this an appropriate post but this is my business and my life and they are on in the same. I have found our fans to be much more than just random strangers of the web and more of an extended family that I have grown to love.

Plus I have an honest question at the end I am agonizing about.

So as with everything Bully Mart we post about our personal happenings here too. This post is extremely personal &  random but you are my peepz and I really need to vent and restore my faith in humanity once more in addition to asking a sort of related question.

This could very well lose some existing fans of Bully Mart as well as potential future fans but my heart is about to burst and I need to …. to ….. to release it. Plus if this offends you then perhaps you are in the wrong place. This is who I am! Love me or hate me but know I am honest and have always been horrible at drawing the line between business and personal. This business is my life, ya can’t get much more personal than that. How can I be expected to divide the two?

So yesterday evening we had to head out to our new home and set up to have the water and electric turned on for our final walk through and inspection before we can move in. In doing so we met one of our new neighbors. YES FINALLY!  I was looking forward to introducing ourselves to our new neighbors in this new chapter in our lives. YAY!  Right? …no wrong!

Let me just say one word…..’DISAPPOINTED’. I am not one to pull the RACE card. In fact my stomach cringes anytime racial dividing talk arises. It infuriates me when its used for excuses so please take that into account when reading this.

All of my anxieties about moving out to bum flip Egypt were once more resurfaced. Within 5 mins of meeting 1 of our new ‘INTERESTING’ neighbors our children managed to hear 2 words they are not familiar with, ‘COLORED’ and the ‘N’ word. :*(. REALLY!? WTF!!!?

What have we just done? Moving our precious children into such an environment? Are people really that ignorant? Sadly yes. With it being an election year especially and this whole Trayvon Martin thing…the racial divide has only come to the forefront unfortunately. While this would likely not be as much of an issue if we lived in NYC, DC, DALLAS or some other modernized larger city it seems to be out in bum flip Texas where we are moving….so far anyway. I PRAY TO GOD the schools are more evolved, if not I guess homeschooling will be happening A LOT sooner then we anticipated. I have a sad feeling we will need to have that ‘TALK’ with our kids now.

I am ashamed to say the comments of our new neighbor totally caught me off guard and actually made me trip over my own words and nervously grin…all I could do was look away over to our children that were happy to be running around playing on the new property….all I did was look away at my children . Which if you know me is not something that happens often. Everything in me wanted to give a verbal lashing to our new neighbor letting her know WE DO NOT USE OR TOLERATE THOSE KINDS OF WORDS OR SPEAK, ESPECIALLY AROUND OUR KIDS.

I have been working on being more in control of my thoughts and words this past year but I feel like this was a time I SHOULD have opened my mouth and removed my filters. My heart broke a million times last night. These are our new neighbors, one of them at least.

What about RACIAL PROFILING to cap off an already racially charged evening?  REALLY? [slaps forehead] How is it that a cop can follow someone driving the speed limit, buckled up, up to date on all tags, no lights out or any other violations for that matter and pull you over to ask you WHERE ARE YOU HEADING? Really you can do that? Apparently!

Did you also know they can do that when you walk your dog in the same neighborhood that you have lived in for 6 years!? In broad day light no doubt just like everyone else walking their dogs but your the only one being questioned about what you are doing. Um…walking my f’ing dog you idiot. Do you not have eyes? Do you not see what everyone else is doing right now in the light of this beautiful Texas day?

Is it because you look different then what the common theme of the neighborhood is by being 6’5″, 280 lbs and of a certain race that you get stopped like this on a weekly basis? My heart hurts. In all my years of living in this area and driving like a krazy woman and walking my dog in the still of the night in suspicious clothing behind houses and through neighborhoods I have never ONCE been stopped! I regret to say I have stopped counting how many times they have stopped my Husband.

Are we really a country full of ignorant narrow minded prejudice and racist people? [deep sigh] My heart hurts. What kind of world is this? My eyes know no color. We ALL bleed red, we ALL cry tears, we ALL hurt & we ALL love just the same way.

Venting over now, [DEEP BREATH] …………….. & ………….. [EXHALE]

Okay now redirecting to my sort of related question.

This is for my country living peepz.

What do you do spider & fire ant control on a massive scale?

What about for snakes? What deterrents do you use for those lovely slithery creatures?

See they do sort of relate, my post is about us moving to the country and my question is about country living .

Truly,

XAVI

We are happy to announce we are back open for business. Sir Izaac is doing better and getting stronger every day. He has proved to be a super needy demanding baby living up to his Sir title More posts and such soon to come.

Dubbed Sir Izaac by the PICU Staff due to his insatiable need for attention and to cause havoc. Today was a good day. He started the day with the breathing machine and ended the day without it and one less IV that he himself decided to wiggle and pull out of.

You can start to see more of that handsome face! I am thrilled he is moving forward faster then expected. I pray to God we will be able to get home sooner hen expected he is doing so well. Its hard to think that getting to the NICU is the next major goal. I never knew here was a level higher then the NICU until now.

 Here is Sir Izaac getting his lil tan on He is too cute with his lil flight goggles on. My precious boy is such a strong little fighter. We are so appreciative to all of you that share a moment of you day with us to keep him in your prayers. The power of prayer is AMAZING!

I wanted to take this moment to give everyone a quick update. While I am not one to be overly  detailed and personal with many or ask for much help from anyone I am making a formal desperate request to the thousands of facebook fans to ask for your prayer for our sweet precious baby boy Mr. Izaac. He arrived Feb. 6th, 2012 at 9:11 pm weighing in at a whopping 8 lbs 13 oz and 21 inches long.

It was almost immediate I knew in my gut something wasn’t right because he was not crying, breathing or moving like a newborn baby should. His coloring was purplish blue at best and he was extremely lethargic. It was very soon after he was placed on my chest and noticing this the staff started to share my concern.

Mr. Izaac’s heart was formed backwards in that it does not circulate his oxygenated blood throughout his little body.  The arteries that do such the job are in the opposite positions and instead circulate it more in a circular loops vs. a figure eight which would send the oxygen filled blood though his entire body and not just his lungs repeatedly. It is called TRANSPOSITION OF THE GREAT ARTERIES or in short TGA. He had an emergency procedure performed early this morning at 3:00 am to enlarge a small hole inbetween the two atriums to allow for maximum saturation for the type of heart diesease he has. This is required so that he can become strong enough to sustain his open heart surgery to repair the artery defects.

As many of you know we have been through some seriously difficult times these last six months but none of it compares to the strength and support we will need to get through this next set of trials and tribulations. This is my precious baby boy and he is a fighter. We are requesting every possible prayer from every single God fearing fan we have It has been an extremely difficult last 24 hrs. but I know in my heart and soul this too shall pass and from the emotional destruction we will come out of it stronger then before with a super strong and healthy Mr. Izaac.

Thank you for reading and for your genuine concern for my family. For that I am EXTREMELY greatfull especially during this difficult time.

It is with a very very heavy heart that I type this. Yesterday January 30th 2012 my poor sweet Frenchie Girl Rumba was bitten and killed by a Black Widow Spider. I almost didnt post this today because my heart is broken and clearly yesterday was a horrible horrible day and couldn’t bring myself to do it then. My stomach is just sick over the outcome of events and the fact that there was nothing the vet could do for her because the toxins had hit her bloodstream so quickly but I realized I HAD to at least post something to share with everyone out there with smaller dogs to keep a serious eye out for.

Black widows do not effect larger dogs in the same way to the same extent but they do mess with their overall health. I am so sick by the course of events yesterday that I was not able to do anything else dog related. I miss my girl and wish to God that I had known the signs of a spider bite in a smaller dog sooner, or that we even had them in the back yard this time of year down here in Texas.

The damage it caused her I PRAY TO GOD no one ever every has to witness their pup go through. It was torture to watch and heartbreaking to feel so helpless. I will never forget the last moments with her and I feel selfish that I wish I didn’t have to witness it.

We all miss you terribly Miss Rumba. There is now a hole in our family that you once occupied.

For more details and info on the dangers of Black Widows Biting Dogs review this link:http://www.petplace.com/dogs/black-widow-spider-bites-in-dogs/page1.aspx

Up for grabs today is ONE OF OUR PERSONAL FAVORITES!  A delicious 1/3 lb box of Melt in Your Mouth Milk Chocolate Mini Mint Sandwiches. These mints are handcrafted one delicious batch at a time using creamy milk chocolate to create a melt-in-your-mouth experience! 1/3 lb of chocolates boxed with ribbon contains approximately 15 mint sandwiches and are made when you order.

First you gotta go to: Whimsy Mama Handcrafted Confections & Gifts Facebook Fan Page, Click LIKE and let her know Bully Mart sent you.

Then you gotta post on our Bully Mart FB Page DAY 1 GIVEAWAY [<--click that for a direct link] thread for this giveaway and let us know your in it to win it! [not a new post on our wall it must be under this thread]

At some point when the day is over we will randomly pick a winner for these delectable delights and be in touch for your shipping details.

** Remember: No party poopers, poor sports and your FB settings MUST allow for your comments to be seen otherwise if we cannot see your comment we cannot enter you to win.