10 things I love

10. Basketball- and not just KU basketball. I love playing basketball so much, and it's something I need to start doing again

9. Shopping. When I save up enough shopping money to do some serious retail therapy, I love it. It's funny because I used to completely hate shopping with a passion. Now that I can go on my own & I'm completely free to make my own choices, I really do love it. Online shopping also makes it easier to love to shop.

8. Driving the shit out of my car. I can't wait for summer to come again so I can put my tires back on and have some grip!

7. Spending time with friends I love. I don't do that nearly enough & tend to make excuses for not seeing the few that are still close to Lawrence. I always say, "Oh they live too far away to visit," but I just need to man up and make the damn drive to OP.

6. Learning new languages. After I just upgraded to iTunes10, I noticed a few features, like audiobooks. This lead to me find a few books that teach you Russian. I also found tons of audio recordings of Russian conversation, so I'm hoping to start picking it up.

5. Lifting weights. I find it so invigorating and I absolutely love the feeling I get after lifting for a while- when I can feel myself getting stronger. And not to mention, it's an easy way to put on weight that looks good.

4. Community service. I used to volunteer all the time and it's something I stopped doing about a year ago. I get a sense of purpose from volunteering and I'm going to start doing it again after finals.

3. Thinking up all of the wonderful outfits I'm going to wear when I a) finally get over my sweatpants phase and b) have enough money to sophisticated clothing.

2. Reading, movies, & TV. Sometimes you need a break from your life or at least a reminder of better things, and these three things are a great way to do that.

1. Our little family that we've created. Every night when we're all at home, the cats are upstairs meowing/going nuts and the puppies are running figure eights around the downstairs, Alexey and I just look at each other and smile because, at the end of the day, life is good.

What I'm thankful for...

I know that I come off as a really unhappy, negative person & I'm sure I annoy quite a few of you. Right now, I'm not at a place in my life where things are going my way, so it gets me down more often than not. However, I do have many things in my life that I'm incredibly grateful for. I was going to take the easy way out of a real Thanksgiving post, but as I was reading other people's posts, I realized I should write them down; focus on the good. So here they are:

• My man. I get way more grumpy with him than I should because he is the most wonderful boyfriend I could ever dream up. He treats me so much better than I probably deserve, and he's the best furdad ever. 
• Our love. As cheesy as it is, I'm really thankful we're still so in love. I felt like this had to be a separate point- just because you have the man doesn't mean you've still got the love!
• My furbabies. I bitch about them on here quite a bit when they do bad things, but it's complete bliss watching them fall asleep & dream their puppy/kitty dreams. Their love is truly unconditional & the stupidest things make them happy as can be. I should really take note & try to see the world like they do....minus the drool & other nasty things ;)
• My sisters. Although we don't get along all the time & they do some things I don't approve of & would never do, I have had much better relationships with them ever since the divorce. We depend on each other more now than we ever have. It's taken some getting used to, but I think I'm finally starting to understand what having a close relationship with my sisters is like. It's mostly good haha
• My house, my car, all of my stuff. Being able to have all of the crap I do is something I take for granted much too often. 
• My job. Sure, there are things I'd like to be different at work, but I have a job. In today's world that is damn lucky. I'm also thankful to work with such amazing people. They have really become friends that I'll miss when we all move to different stores or on to different places. 
• My education. School stresses me out like no other, but learning is something I really love. Once school is over, I hope I have enough time to continue taking classes. Even if I don't, I'll still be thankful for my education & all that I've learned. 
• The level of freedom I have. I was thinking about this on my drive to OP today. I drove almost an hour away & didn't have to stop at any military checkpoints, didn't see guys carrying around guns on the streets, there were no riots, etc. 
• My general health. My health is something that causes (or has already caused) the majority of problems in my life. But what I am thankful for when it comes to health is that I don't have a disease that is killing me...or at least I don't think it's killing me. I'll get back to you on that.

Today made it kind of hard to focus on everything I have to be thankful for, but this day is about being grateful for what you have, not about being upset with the shit you've been dealt. Hope everyone was able to enjoy all that they have to be thankful for. 

Good day?

I'd actually say I had a pretty good day today despite everything that happened. Yes, that's right people, I'm focusing on the GOOD parts of today instead of the BAD. Bet that was one hell of a surprise, huh?

This morning I woke up with a migraine. That sucked, but I was being spooned by my man, so I didn't really even care I had a migraine. I also got to sleep in until about 11:30! After breakfast, I decided I just couldn't stand my hair cut anymore & that it needed to be fixed. I decided I'd shower, do my hair like I normally do it & head to another stylist to show her what had been done to my hair.

A bit before I was supposed to leave, my awesome manager texted me offering me some hours tonight, so I said I'd come in after my hair cut. I headed to my appointment & was delighted when she thought my hair looked just as horrid as I thought it did :) But really, she could tell the girl just wasn't paying attention. She did an awesome job fixing it, even though she had to take a little more off the bottom.

Funny side story: we were talking about our dogs, & I mentioned Tuck & said, "He's part sheltie, part kangaroo." Her response was, "Oh really? I didn't know they could do that!" Hehe. She thought I meant he literally was part kangaroo instead of me just meaning he's quite the jumper. She was really sweet & actually listened to what I was saying! She seriously did a great job, & I feel like I can actually go out in public again.

After my hair cut I raced home to shower & get ready for work. I took the dogs out right as I was about to leave, & what happens? Tuck has diarrhea. AWESOME! When we got inside he also started dry heaving, so that was great. Usually I wouldn't think very much of this, but he ate poo at the dog park yesterday that I could clearly see a worm in when I went over to get him away from it. I did NOT want to spend Thanksgiving home, taking him out every 5 minutes, so I called the vet. Yeah, apparently they all closed really early for the holiday.

Because of that I had to take him to Banfield in Overland Park. He made it the whole way there, all the time in OP, and the whole way back without making a mess so that was freaking amazing. The vet was actually really good & they were super quick! Something Banfield never has been. Tuck actually liked it. After the vet, I stopped by my mom's house to introduce Tucker to the family dog, Mandy & they got along pretty well. Mandy doesn't like other dogs at all, so that was  huge.

As I was leaving OP, I called back my friend Brian to see what he had called for earlier. I ended up going over to his place to hang out for a bit since I haven't seen him in way too long. Did I mention how much I love catching up with good friends? Let's just say I'm feeling completely refreshed & that's probably the reason I'm being positive tonight. Tuck behaved pretty well after his initial freak out because of meeting a new person & being in a new place.

Now we're finally back home, Tucker is medicated, & Koopa & Tuck are reunited again :D

My girls....the nut jobs

My cats are pretty much insane. They chase each other up and down the hall all day, make panther noises when they're acting especially nutty, and do things like this:



No, we didn't put her up there. She likes to do the strangest things. Things like that, obviously, but lately she has taken to doing things like this: (note: sorry for talking weird to my cats in the background, but I've already admitted I'm a cat lady so it shouldn't surprise you)

 

That's her rolling around in Tucker's smell. The end of the video clearly shows that she's pretty much terrified of the dogs- she jumps every time she hears them & thinks they're coming upstairs, but apparently she loves them enough (secretly) to want to crawl into their crates & roll around in their smell.

Having 5 animals can be quite a headache sometimes, but it's mostly just moments like these that make me laugh & scratch my head. :D

No words

I don't even have words to describe this right now. But you better believe I had them when I walked in the door at saw this. Let's just say I'm going to have two very well-behaved dogs for a while...you know like an hour more or so :/

Yawn

I'm getting slightly bored with posting every day. I usually don't remember to post until about 10 or 11pm, so they come from a very groggy me.

That makes for pretty worthless posts. I'd like to say that I'll try to start posting earlier in the day when I might actually care about writing (um...typing?) a good post, but I've got a couple of busy weeks ahead.

The two things I can say about today are that a) I bought a perfect pair of jeans- the only ones I've ever had that are long enough to drag the ground and b) dogs REALLY like to eat things they shouldn't. My two ruined a perfect day at the dog park trying to eat things they shouldn't. Well at least I thought they ruined it. They probably had the time of their lives trying to get around me to what they wanted.

Update on Tuck

I just realized that I haven't posted an update about Tuck...actually I don't think I've blogged at all about him yet! I was pretty surprised the other day to find out that a few people I work with didn't know that we'd gotten another dog. This was for an obvious reason- we had been hiding it from everyone!

Once people found out about him, they thought it was silly that we'd been hiding it, but we did it for a good reason. So many people already judge us for having as many animals as we do & we just wanted to be happy with our new dog instead of worrying about what people thought about us having him. We thought it'd be much easier for someone to find out on their own, say, "You got another dog?! How are you going to handle that?!" and for us to be able to reply, "Oh, we're handling it just fine, thank you, and have been for the past 2 months." It definitely was easier that way.

Now when we first got him, I wasn't sure. He was a very independent dog & we'd always find him in another room sleeping alone. He and Koopa just didn't play all that often, so we thought...ahem...I thought it wasn't going to work out. But as time went on & he got more comfortable with us & Koopa, we all fell in love. All of the things that I'd been worrying about vanished & it's really been great.

He and Koopa play all day except for when they're sleeping or eating. They do a very good job of entertaining themselves so we don't have to keep Koopa interested as often (not that we'd mind it!). Koopa now eats two times a day instead of nibbling all day long. They take naps together, they clean each others teeth, and now they have another dog to play tug with.

Tuck is also an incredibly smart dog. He has learned so much in the couple of months since we got him...he's even better at Koopa on most commands. My favorite part about him is that he is so attentive. Koopa has no problem completely ignoring us, but Tuck almost seems like he's waiting for us to ask him to do something. Every time we move, he looks up and makes eye contact like he's saying, "What can I do for you?" It's awesome.

I do have some complaints obviously. My first one is actually kind of humorous. I have two very noisy dogs. This doesn't change when they're playing; actually it's worse when they do. And they play all the time. They slam each other into walls, grab each others legs and drag the other around by them, and whine/make Chewbacca noises while they play. Most of the time it's downright funny, but sometimes when I'm studying I just can't take it! We're definitely working on decreasing the damn noise. The second complaint is that they like to play too much! When I take them out to go to the bathroom, they do their thing, but on the way back in they start playing. This normally wouldn't be a problem except that they're ON LEASH and -worst of all- attached to me! I bet this really cracks the neighbors up seeing me get dragged around by two nutty dogs.

But really, I'm just so incredibly happy to have 2 dogs & 3 cats that are happy and so loved. They improve my life so much & I really hope that we do the same for them. Now before I get too sappy, here are some pictures of my boys and even a video so you believe me about Chewbacca.

I need help with names!

So summer is rapidly approaching and this makes me very VERY happy! For one, school will be out! But secondly, we have just over 30 days until we can start looking for the newest member of our family!

We are getting a puppy (ish...she will be older, most likely, than how old Koopa was when we got him), and we need to figure out what we're going to name her! If you can only name dogs based on what they look like, I can give you some guidelines. We're looking for either a) a shepherd-type dog that looks similar to Koopa or b) a black lab/border collie mix. And if you think her name needs to mesh with our other animals' (or at least Koopa's) names, their names are Pumpkin, Macy, Jilly and Koopa. Here is the list we have going so far:

• Kenzie
• Zoey
• Daisy (Mario theme...)
• Kasha (pronounced Kah-shuh)
• Ruby
• Piper
• Kya (pronounced Kie...as in pie...uh)

We're responsible for naming half of our animals, and the other half have been named by friends and family, so we're asking for your suggestions! Our only requirement is that it is a girl name, it's not too human (Amanda, for example), and that it's two syllables. I have more lists than you could possibly imagine getting us ready for this new addition, so if we can make a decision on a name, that would be one less list to keep track of!  If you can't think of any extra ones, feel free to at least comment on which ones on our list you like. Thanks for your help!

Need a laugh?

This post is about my dog pooing- it's not really graphic, but I thought I'd warn you anyway.
You know how most (normal) dogs go out & go right away when they need to go to the bathroom? Not my dog. Here is a glimpse into what I deal with almost every time he needs to do his business. Side note: the "bang!" is a bell next to the door that he rings when he needs to go to the bathroom.

1) Bang!
2) Look at mom (repeat 1 & 2 x 20)
3) Go outside
4) Sniff grass forever
5) Try to get the baseball from mom
6) Sniff the grass
7) STICK!
8) Chew stick
9) Lay down to chew stick (in the wet grass)
10) Chew little piece of stick ripped off as mom took away big stick
11) Eat stick
12) Sniff poop from yesterday
13) OH POOP!
14) Poop
15) Eat cockroach
16) Inside

Yep, 16 steps to get my dog to do his business and get back inside. And I laughed the entire time. Hope it made you chuckle! Happy Monday!

Random thoughts of the day

I realized that I rarely post a blatantly positive blog post, so I'm going to do that today by sharing a few random thoughts.

• The weather outside is AMAZING! The clouds are fluffy and white. The beautiful blue sky is visible. It's just breezy and not windy.
• The trees outside are big enough now that birds can sit in them. Know what that means? I get to listen to the sweet songs they sing.
• Koopa and the cats are absolutely loving having the windows open. They've been laying in front of them all day.
• Since I started lifting weights a couple of days ago, I've gained 3 pounds! Losing all that weight so fast was pretty scary, so gaining it back fast has eased my worries. And it's going to be awesome to have some strength back and have arms that are more filled out. Can't wait!
• This is probably the first holiday in my 23 years that will be spent family-drama free. That in itself is freakin' amazing and unbelievable.
• I ate mini corn dogs last night and didn't get sick! I'm still on a high from it. It's been so long since I've had a meat other than turkey. I have also always loved corn dogs, so being able to eat them again (slowly and in small quantities lol) has been great.
• Did I mention this weather?!

Hope you all are enjoying your Sunday!

Love

Boys: if you gag when you see/hear something sappy, I recommend skipping this post...
I have a happy, deep thought type post to write! Yay! Apparently blogging about being out of ideas spurs the creative juices :)

As I sit here watching my doggy sleep and snore like a pot belly pig, I can't help but start thinking about the potential second dog that might be joining our family this summer. We've already got 3 cats and a dog, so I was wondering: how much love is the human heart (mine specifically) capable of?
This is something I worried about when we got Macy, then when we got Koopa, and yet again when we got Jilly. But each time, my heart opened up even more and I ended up loving each one as much as the other. And I love my boyfriend more and more every day, even though I didn't think I could ever love him more than the first time he told me he "liked me so much he loved me." :)

So why, if I've already loved so much more than I thought I could, am I worried about being able to love another dog? With all the people that are giving me crap for getting yet another animal, you'd think that it's them I'm worried about. That I wouldn't want to be looked at as the "crazy girl" with 5 animals.

Here's the deal: I know how we live. I know our house is cleaner and more organized than most all of theirs. I know that every one of our animals is completely loved and cared for. I know just how long (and it's been a long time) we've been considering this...going through our budget over and over, reconsidering how Koopa gets along with other dogs, doing test runs with his dog friends, making sure his training is complete enough that he won't act up once another dog is in the picture. So no, I'm not worried at all about the opinions of other people because I know we have prepared and are (physically) ready for another dog.

I'm worried about the unknowns- the things I can't control. Such as love. Can I love another dog? When Koopa was going through his teenage phase and rebelling against everything we had taught him, making it seem as though we'd never spent at least 30 minutes a day training him, I still loved him. When he was acting up and all I wanted to do was scream at him, I did the opposite (usually)...I loved him. I smiled at him, pet him, picked up a toy and played with him. Guess what that did? It made him snap out of it! We were told that this phase could last for up to a year and we broke though it in just a few months. What that tells me is that if I can open up my heart and let another dog in, so much good will come of it.

We will have another dog to bring us joy and Koopa will feel whole. If those people that call us idiots could see him with other dogs then compare that to when he's at home alone, I think they'd really understand one of the reasons we want another dog. Koopa is one of those dogs that needs a partner in crime. And we want to raise another puppy...and we CAN raise another puppy. All I have to do is figure out that my heart is capable of infinite love and everything will be ok.

White Christmas

Well, people wanted a White Christmas & they got just that. We are practically snowed in!

I've been quite a lazy bum since I got home from work earlier, so I just got off the couch to see what it was like outside. We have about 6 inches worth of snow piled up outside the sliding door! Granted the wind has blown it up that high, but it's still probably at least 4 inches across the lawn. We also have a snow drift the wind made near our front door that is a foot and a half tall! Pretty crazy stuff.

I was supposed to go to my grandparent's house tonight for our usual Christmas Eve celebration, but the roads were pretty icy when I got off work. I figured driving back to OP would not be a good idea. I might have made it out there without any major problems, but with a blizzard forcasted, I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it back ok. Definitely glad I made that choice. It is a little strange to not be at home with my family on Christmas Eve, but it's pretty nice to be honest.

I've always hated the holidays because they always meant yelling and disappointment for me. Not me yelling or being disappointed, but other members of my family. This year doesn't feel like Christmas at all- except for the snow & Christmas movies on TV. We didn't have a tree or any holiday decorations up this year, and we didn't even go celebrate with our families. I'm sure right now plenty of kids are tucked away dreaming of Santa, but Christmas awe is lost on me. I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but I do miss it a little.

It's slightly sad, but I think I miss the food the most! All the different Christmas cookies my family would cook, mashed potatoes and the best gravy ever, povitica, turkey. Yum! But maybe I'll still get to have a little of that tomorrow if this blizzard melts away.

Anyway, it's nice to be able to spend the holiday with the one who has always decreased my stress level. (I'm not talking about Koopa!) It was a very relaxing night, and I definitely enjoyed it. We had a little bit of a fun time trying to get Koopa into his snow gear- he's not too keen on the boots, but he loves his coat. Here's a pic of him before he ripped off the boots:

I'm sure he'll be ok with the boots as soon as he realizes what they're for. He HATES when his feet are cold. He will stand with one paw up at a time trying to keep them warm. If anyone has any tips about keeping them on his feet, please share!