Skunked & Goosed and a case of hives

So i was only home a few days when i came down with hives. it started on my face, then on my neck and chest. (it's been 4 days and i still have them coming and going). the only thing i can think of is that i had a reaction to a plant that i bought (i've ruled out food, since i hadn't really eaten anything that i would react to). i suspect this plant because its flowers were oily and that is exactly what happened to Dillon one time when i had him smell this rosemary plant that my friend had bought me as a thank you gift. fresh rosemary is very oily and he broke out all over with hives. and it was the same thing, they would come and go and it lasted about 4 days. so after i planted this new plant i noticed ants on the flowers, which i touched and i could feel the oil on the flowers. the oil gets absorbed into your skin and then, if you are allergic - hives. fun fun. they are very itchy and bumpy. my skin on my face looks bad and one day my right eye lid had hives and looked swollen. lovely!

So, last night i picked up dillon from his improv show (his team got 2nd by the way) and then we went and picked up milk and cereal. upon entering the house, we were greeted with this horrific STENCH - skunk! ick, ew, gross and nasty. obviously, one of dogs got skunked (we have 3 dogs). i immediately suspected Kirby, our golden, because she is always getting skunked. but we ruled her out and ended up picking as our contestant, Pepper, one of the Westies. it was already late in the evening (almost midnight) and i didn't have the supplies i needed to bathe her (for the record the receipe for de-skunking is: peroxide, tomato juice and liquid detergent. so we cwardened (sp?) off Pepper in one room and went to bed. (for the record, Pepper is the westie with the blue collar, shorter fur and Gracie is the westie with longer fur and has that look of trouble on her face!)

This morning i ran and got what i needed and dillon and i gave her a bath. then dillon said, we might want to bathe Gracie (the other Westie) because she smelled a little too. i told dillon to pick her up and smell her because Gracie DOES NOT like to get a bath and i DO NOT like to give her a bath. she yelps, she squirms and then starts screaming bloody murder. it is not fun and if i don't need to give her a bath, i'm not going to! So luckily, we decided that she really didn't smell.

when i picked up pepper to go into the house, i decided that she still smelled bad and that we would give her another "special" bath. she was done lickety split and we all went into the house. i called the other dogs and as i stepped inside, Gracie comes running in with this goo all over her. she had just went and rolled in goose crap! unbelievable! i just looked at her as if she could understand me and said "you just set yourself up for failure, what were you thinking?"

So Gracie got her bath.