Well, I've done it!

I just switched over to the new blogger. Hopefully there won't be too many hiccups...let me know if you see anything too weird!

Resolutions, anyone?

Merry Christmas, everybody! Hope you all had a wonderful, blessed holiday, and I hope Santa was as good to you as he was to me.

Now my thoughts are turning to the new year, and yet another fresh start on the journey of life. 2006 was interesting - it was the year I was going to get my finances under control, my weight under control, and my house under control. Oh, and get pregnant.

Well, one out of four isn't TOO bad, I suppose...we did pretty well with our finances. I lost 14 pounds and managed to only gain two of them back, but I still have a long way to go. My house, well, is a disaster area. And, drugged as I may be, I'm still not pregnant, unless some miracle has occurred in the last few days and my body just isn't telling me.

I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

I think 2007 will be the year of the house. My resolution is to stop being such a tremendous slob. Can I do it? It's not in my nature - I've been a slob my entire life. It honestly doesn't bother me that the dogs track mud all over the floor, that there are dirty dishes all over the counters, and that I've actually talked to a pile of dog hair, thinking it was one of my dogs. I can block out messes with ease - I have decades of practice.

But, it does bother my husband. And, at some point, I just might actually succeed in getting pregnant, and I suppose I should develop some good habits before there is a wee one crawling around on my floors.

So, in the interest of being a better wife and future mother, I hereby declare 2007 to be the year of the clean house. I will take 20 minutes in the morning, at least three days a week, and clean something. Don't worry, I have two hours every morning between the time hubby leaves for work and the time I do. Usually I'm just on the internet. I might as well do something productive!

I will file, not just pile.

I will break out our old room assignment sheet, which worked for all of about two weeks, where we each take a room of the house each week and clean it. We have it broken into eight areas, so the whole house gets cleaned once a month. It's a reasonable schedule, we're just lazy people.

This will, in turn, help me keep my finances in order (because I cook more in a clean kitchen, and I'll actually know what we have so I won't buy multiples of stuff), and heck, it just might help me get my weight in order (because I cook more in a clean kitchen).

Wish me luck!!!

A little trip down memory lane...

Thank you, Boston Globe, for reminding me that YouTube is a great place to watch all the videos for sappy 80s ballads that I love so much!

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/gallery/top_ten_worst_songs/

At least they're entertaining...

I'm home sick today, and Hershey is amusing me. She lays out in the middle of the living room floor and randomly moans. She doesn't want anything, really - she doesn't need to go out (she just did), it's not meal time, and she's been getting love all morning. I think she just wants me to know she's still alive. Silly puppy!

Ringo, on the other hand, made me laugh so hard I cried on Saturday. We have these stupid yappy dogs in the yard behind us, who think that they could actually take my dogs in a fight. In reality, either of my dogs could step on one of them and that would be the end of it, and the other one would just require a good shake. But whatever. Anyway, I let the dogs out, and stupid yappy dog #1 ran up to the fence and started instigating something. Ringo, of course, took off to the fence, but he knows he's not supposed to bark (and lately he's been good about it). So what did he do? He calmly lifted his leg and peed through the fence onto stupid yappy dog! I laughed SO HARD! And yet stupid yappy dog just kept barking...

No one can ever say that pets aren't entertaining!

Listen to that little voice...

No, this isn't a story about some tragic circumstance brought about because someone didn't listen to their conscience.

This is a story about a Christmas ornament.

Yesterday, I was putting ornaments on the tree. We have a fake tree, and it's smaller than the real trees we've had in years past, so this year I decided I was only going to put ornaments on that really mean something to me (I have A LOT of ornaments - probably enough for two or three trees of the size we have). So I was going through the boxes, pulling them out one by one, and thinking about where I got them, and what the story was behind them. There was the little girl swinging in the wreath, given to me by a very dear family friend. The WWU teddy bear, purchased at a bazaar shortly before I graduated. "Our First Christmas Together", given to us as a Christmas gift the year we got married. And then I came to the one I bought when I got my first apartment.

It was one of those delicate ball ornaments, covered in glitter, with the year (1996) on one side, and a Santa Claus on the other side. After graduating in December 2005, I finally moved out of my parents house in November 2006 and I wanted an ornament to commemorate my finally being a grownup. So I went out and shopped around and picked this one. It's been on my tree every year since.

Then I went back to the box and pulled out two from my former place of employment. We had pewter ornaments made for our donors each year, and the staff always got to take one too. I hung the first one up. Then I held the second one in my hand, thinking "do I really need two? This place isn't THAT important to me, and besides, I don't really like the design of this one." But, I was standing in front of the tree already so I decided to put it up. While trying to separate the loop so I could put it over a branch, I dropped it. Right onto the "my first apartment" ornament.

It knocked a big hole in the top of the ornament, and sent tiny shards of glass flying. I swore, threw away the rest of the ornament, got out the vacuum, and cleaned it up. DH came out to see what the fuss was about. I went to the garbage and picked it up by the hanger, which promptly broke off, and what was left of the globe went crashing to the floor, spraying shards of glass all over the kitchen. Guess if you're going to break it, break it right. Swearing wasn't enough by that point, I had to cry.

The moral of the story? I should have listened to my little voice. That glass ball had much more meaning to me than the second pewter ornament. Every year when I took it out of the box, I remembered how excited I was to be out on my own, finally an adult. And now every year when I take the other ornament out, I will remember that little lesson in listening, and doing what you say you're going to do.

It's a small, seemingly insignificant story. But an important reminder, nonetheless.

Do dogs remember?

The last two mornings we've had some snow. This morning there's some ice mixed in there just for fun, too. Which makes me wonder...do dogs remember? I've always heard that dogs just live in the moment, but I'm not so sure...

Last winter we had one really snowy day. We let the dogs out to play, and when they came back in Hershey was bleeding all over the place. She had somehow managed to rip a big hole in one of her pads. It took about two months to heal, which was a pretty traumatic experience for her because not only did she have to get it cleaned out all the time, she had to wear one of those collars, but it was too short and she could still rip her bandages off, so Larry extended it with cardboard. Which meant that she couldn't really see where she was going and she kept running (literally) into door frames. It was as if she thought if she went at the doorway fast enough, she'd just sail through it... Anyway, she was a pretty miserable dog for a couple of months!

Fast forward to yesterday. Woke up to about half an inch of snow on the ground. Ringo went bounding out into it, but Hershey, well, Hershey barely made it out the door. She was NOT happy about having to go outside! She stepped very tentatively through the snow, slowly, taking her own sweet time. she did the same thing again this morning. And she won't play with Ringo out there no matter what he does.

It really makes me wonder - does snow equal pain for her? Does she remember? Is she afraid it will happen again? Hmm...things to ponder...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out in blogger land. I hope that you have a lovely day with friends and/or family filled with lots of good food. We're heading to my parents' house in a few hours.

I have lots of things to be thankful for this year. We're both employed at the moment, we have lots of fabulous friends and family tensions are calm at the moment. We're not pregnant yet but we're well on our way, and we have lots of new nieces and nephews to be thankful for.

What are you thankful for this year?

Enough already!

Ok people, listen up. This is THANKSGIVING WEEK. It is NOT the start of the Christmas season. That happens on FRIDAY. FIVE MORE DAYS. You can't handle FIVE MEASLY MORE DAYS???

I am at peace with the fact that the stores put their Christmas stuff out in August, but...

The Christmas decorations are already up (and lit up at night) on the streetlights in town. My neighbors have their Christmas tree up and decorated (as a caveat, I will forgive them for this if I happen to notice that their soldier son is home for Thanksgiving, because that will signify to me that they are doing Christmas and Thanksgiving at the same time this year). The radio station I listen to at work has been playing Christmas music for over a week. Home Depot is playing nonstop Christmas music.

ONE FREAKING HOLIDAY AT A TIME, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm all for shopping early, in fact I've already got half of mine done, but this whole "let's celebrate the season already" thing is getting out of control...

Now this is a Saturday night!

Just have to say, there is nothing more exciting in life than sitting at work on a Saturday night, printing envelopes and cutting inserts.

Really.

You should try it sometime!

:-P

Hey OJ!

People who are truly innocent don't write books making up ways that they would commit the crime. People who are truly innocent mourn the ones they loved. And they certainly don't go on Fox news giving lengthy interviews about how they would have done it, had they had the chance.

Just a tip.