“Hi guuuuuys!!! Today on Divas Can Cook we’re going to be making…. ” Ha! Just playing! I don’t have a video recipe for you today but I do want to update you all on what I’ve been up to and why the videos are super slow these days. Everyday I get at least one email asking “Monique where you at!” or “Are you going to post a new videos this week?” or “what’s up with all the video-less posts?”

Well before I could blame my lack of posting on moving! We’ve been moving so much lately but now we are all settled in our house.

To celebrate our new home we decided to finally get our dream dog, a big ol bullmastiff! Well…my dream dog anyway. Hubby wasn’t so thrilled with  getting a dog that was expected to exceed 130 lbs!

247675_10200361870766726_635178971384657964_n

Isn’t she  just a cutie pie? She was only 3 months old on this picture below and since the moment we brought her home in early March she has been such a sweet, quiet and calm little puppy. She really is the best breed of dog I’ve ever had.  All was going well until……

11080561_10200499399364855_8605511964122646368_o

I started to get a little tickle in my throat. Mainly at night. This little tickled turned into nightly hoarseness. By the end of the day my voice was pretty much a whisper.

What the heck does this have to do with videos you ask? Well I normally record my voiceovers at night. It’s when the house is calm and quiet and I finally get my me time from my normal hectic schedule of homeschooling, running errands, working my business, my blog and a million other things I’ve got going on.

11154588_10200610398179756_5888686588190665948_o

This became a huge problem! My blog is one of my businesses and I NEED my voice to do voiceovers! I can’t be sounding all Barry White and “newportish” in these videos!! So not cute!

So then I worked out a schedule with hubby so that I could start doing my voiceovers during the day and he’d take the kids out. That was working great until my night time hoarseness also became daytime hoarseness!

11229921_10200926139233085_2011520656233843879_o

I developed a severe cough, runny nose and just felt blah every single day! Typical allergy symptoms for me. Soon the entire family started to get this nagging cough. We figured it had to be something in the house because we felt fine when we left the house and didn’t feel this way until we moved in. We changed out the air filters, deep cleaned, checked for mold, everything!!

11016121_10200554797069763_3447569194075854980_o

I even started having heart palpations and chest pressure over the months and ended up in the ER hooked up to all kind of machines for 24 hours!  WTF! They didn’t find anything wrong with my heart thank God, but told me it could a number of things including a severe allergy to something.

Hmm…I’d been having lots of allergy symptoms over the months but the house was checked thoroughly and we hadn’t tried any new detergents or anything like that. NOr have I been stressed. What was making us all cough!?

11053716_10200832919902660_935422243907968344_o

Yep ZONKA!!!

Turns out we are ALL allergic to our sweet little bullmastiff. I seem to be more sensitive to her though. Maybe because I spend the most time with her.

11823104_10200954316697504_8466869500823017077_o

After brushing her one day and going into a coughing fit is when I finally put two and two together. I moved her cage to the basement and away from the air vent recently and my cough slowly began to get better.

I’m really at a lost right now because I’m not sure what to do. I’ve never been allergic to an animal before. She is not a breed that likes to be alone and we were told that she MUST always be with her pack (us) in order to keep from getting bored and/or becoming aggressive. So the basement is out and besides we really like having her around us. She’s so protective and gentle.

11052380_10152824546423031_6073595165137939247_o

What do people do when they are allergic to their pets?? *sigh*

Well my voice is slowly getting back to normal and I’ll get back to posting videos soon. Just wanted to let you guys know where I’ve been.

I’m still not sure what we’re going to do with our Zonka though : (