How To Adopt Furry Family Members

In the post How To Be a Lover of Animals, I gave some backstory on our one and only cat, Hallie. Since we did very little this weekend and spent most of the time yelling at our dogs, I thought I'd give some backstory. Here's all you need to know about our eldest: Daisie.

 Daisie as a puppy, approx 3 months

Daisie today at 2 1/2 years

After I moved into the house and Alex was over a lot, he decided it was time I got a dog. He did a lot of the research and would constantly send me pictures of dogs. I specifically remember getting the picture of Daisie (who was actually named Ashley) and thinking she was like a little cub, furry and cute. It took a lot of convincing, especially since I was working a ton and I was worried about Hallie's feelings, but he finally got me to accept. He found her on petfinder.com, and she was the last of a litter of eight to be adopted. She was born in November and the runt, which I hear are the best! She was rescued by a group called Heart for Dog Rescue, and put into a foster home. I remember it was February 5, 2009, and Alex and I were going to meet her. The foster parents were super nice, and Daisie/Ashley was just so adorable! We took her home that evening. One look was all it took. On our way back home, we were throwing out different names. I have this obsession with names and with my female pet names ending in "ie." We went through everything, Rubie, Goldie, Blondie, Pansie, until Daisie. 

She was such an adorable little pup-pup that it was hard not to fall fast for her! We took her to the vet for all her checkups and everything was going smoothly until one day. She began acting lethargic and stopped eating/drinking, so we started to get a little worried. We called our vet friend in a panic and she suggested that if she didn't get back to normal after trying a few things, then we should take her to the animal clinic. Well, we freaked and took to the animal clinic. $300 later, we find out she has parvo (fatal in 80% of dogs) and has to have a sack of fluids put under her skin, so she doesn't get dehydrated. We could've left her there for observation or taken her home. We chose the latter. We cried on the way home and spent as much time with her at night. The next morning she was still a little slow moving and not ingesting anything, so I ran out to the store and grabbed some popsicles, hoping she'd eat them. Not only did she eat the popsicles, but she also ate some eggs and rice. She was getting back to normal and had survived the parvo scare!

    

where's that coming from?

As she was growing up, Alex was able to watch and train her during the days I was at work, and a friend would let her out on days neither one of us could. Alex spent a lot of time with her, which probably explains her codependency and obsession with him. She is in LOVE with him! But, she is also the best behaved dog we have. She is easily scared and acts like a good guard dog, but I think she would hide if push came to shove. She also has the largest, deadliest tail known to man! It hits everything and doesn't feel good when it does. No matter what, I'm glad to have her. She's sweet, loving, and a sissy, but I couldn't imagine not having her!

To all you dog lovers, 

--Am

PS - I forgot to mention how cute Alex was when we first got her. He was so excited, he went to PetSmart with his mom to pick everything out (ie bed, collar). It was so adorable when he brought home the pink collar with white daisies for our little Daisie. :)

How To Take Your Lunch To Work

As usual, I was running late this morning. I was going to workout, but decided to postpone it and sleep in. I can always workout tomorrow, right? I eventually got up an hour and fifteen minutes after the original alarm went off. Went through my usual getting ready routine and made it downstairs by 8:22. I need to leave by 8:35 to get to work on time. Sounds like plenty of time. Well, I still had to take the dogs out and pack my lunch. I started with the dogs. Daisie and Dodgy were good, but Diego was poop-hunting (courtesy of the neighborhood rabbit). It was hard to keep him focused on the task of taking a poo. I was outside with him until 8:33. Pain in my neck! So, I have two minutes to grab breakfast, brew some coffee, and make my lunch.

I recently attended a class that gave guidelines on how to eat better and prepare your body for the "future." In preparation for this, we had stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies. With that, I knew I wanted to have a fancy salad! Oh the wonderful, colorful ingredients that are to be included. We have green peppers, tomatoes, mini cucumbers, avocados, spring lettuce mix, chick peas, and sunflower seeds. As you can see, many of those items need chopped and diced. That would take forever! With time on my mind, I grabbed one pepper, six tomatoes (the size of cherry tomatoes, but not cherry tomatoes), one cucumber, an avocado, the boxed lettuce, a can of chick peas, and the full can of dry roasted sunflower seeds. I throw in a knife, baggie, cutting board, empty tuperware, and bowl. Let's not forget some dressing! I make my own using olive oil, red wine vinegar, and greek seasoning, then throw it in the bag. Since I had prepared to make my lunch at the office, I thought I could spare a few minutes to cut up some fruit (which I didn't even eat). Honey dew was sliced and combined with raspberries and blueberries. It will make for a good snack. And so will the flax seed crackers, nutella (for my almonds already at the office), greek yogurt, which made their way into the bag o' food. Yep, I took the whole pantry and fridge to work today!

With my decaf and banana in hand, I put the dogs in their cages and headed towards work. By now it's 8:49 and I'm definitely going to be late. Oh, it was worth a try. After I snacked most of the morning, I was finally ready to eat at 12:27. I trekked downstairs and started dicing. Mind you, I didn't want to bring a fancy knife with me, so I grabbed a steak knife. Not the best idea I've ever had, but it did the trick. :) All the extras went into the tuperware (pepper, tomatoes, cucumber) and baggie (half the avocado). The remaining chick peas will be mixed up tomorrow with the leftovers (sans the lettuce), and it will be tasty! Everything was thrown in the bowl and sprinkled with chick peas and sunflower seeds. Once back upstairs, I'm ready to eat my fabulous salad. Doesn't it look delish?

thank you to Allison Ackmann for the picture!

I poured on the dressing and devoured it! There's nothing like fresh produce, and I'm a true believer that avocado makes anything taste better. Delicious! Good thing I did all the chopping today, so tomorrow it will be easy.

Happy Salad Making!

--Am

How To Time Travel

Every time I visit my parents, I head up to my old room and peruse the clothes, schoolbooks, childhood toys, and other random items. We visited them on Sunday and like always, I trekked up to my room. I found some string that I once I used to make friendship bracelets (remember those?), but could now find a more creative project for it. On this particular trip I decided to open up the boxes stored up high. The first one I opened contained old baby blankets. Not sure if they could be reused for an future babies, but decided I could take them home. The next box was filled with old guard sweatshirts. I wasn't in the mood for guard reminiscing, so I put these back on the shelf. The third box I opened was brimming with old, dirty, precious stuffed animals. As a child, I had somewhat of an obsession with stuffed animals. I loved them! I had to get all of them out and reconnect with each of them. As I'm starting to get to know them all over again, Al rounds the corner and asks, "What in the hell are you doing?" I explain the animals and start to give him their backstories, but he doesn't care. All he can say is, "You know that a pediatrician would never let you give those to little kids, right?" Of course (although it does break my heart a little), but it was still fun going down memory lane! 

On my way out of the closet, I grab my favorite pair of jeans from high school (I just could never part with them) and my mom's hot pants outfit. A little history behind the hot pants. When my mom was 15, she travelled overseas (France and maybe some other places). My grandmother picked her up at the airport to find her wearing this outfit. Boy, was she in trouble! Back to me, I used to wear the top to the hot pants outfit in high school, but could never fit into the bottoms. I decided to try it on with my new found body. Hot pants still don't fit and the shirt is not very flattering. It was worth a try! Being a little discouraged, I decided to go for the jeans and see if they fit. So, I tried them on they are perfect. Not tight or loose, but just perfect. They are soft to the touch and oh so comfy! I have missed these jeans. They are terribly frayed at the bottom and have holes in the wrong places, but are still wonderful. I wouldn't dare try to wear them at work, but they are perfect for weekends and lounging around. In fact, I'm wearing them right now!  

the jeans

al made me stick my butt out :(

at least diego looks cute

the hot pants

Another great treasure from high school is my class ring. I've been wearing it on and off in place of my wedding ring, while the wedding ring was getting fixed. That took longer than expected as the stone cracked and the ring was out for an additional week! However, it was nice to wear the chunky class ring for a bit. It's somewhat masculine, and I think I actually like how it looks on me now better than it did back in the day! 

class of 2000

amber!

Happy reminiscing! 

--Am

How To Make a Baby Book

As most of you know, my baby sister is expecting. Honestly, it took me a while to get used to it. I had always expected to go through that first, but God likes to take your expectations, throw 'em out the window, and see how you deal. To make it up for how distant I was in the beginning, I decided to use my recently acquired crafting skills to make a baby book. The book is similar to that of a scrapbook; it's not just photos or details, but both.

It started with me finding three stamps in the $1 bin at Michaels. The stamps read, "funny face", "oh baby", and "my life". From there I found some inks, powders, and cut-outs. Then with various trips to Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and Meijer, I found the rest of the materials. I couldn't tell you how many different trips or how much I spent, but Alex would not be happy if he knew the "secret" materials I purchased!

all the materials…mostly

I started by building the first page which would contain the details of the birth and baby. While building this page, I asked Al his opinion on something and he said it was fine. When I did it for real, he asked why I had done it that way. Apparently it looked like shit! I tried to cover it with a cloud, but it looked awful. Al had the idea to do balloons, so I gave in and went with it. I was pretty excited with how it turned out. It took me a full night to complete that page. And over a period of two weeks (I think), I worked on the book. I've come out with a total of 16 pages. In addition to the front page, there's one for the nursery, for the first bath, for the first smile, for only mom and baby, for only dad and baby, and many more. For the front cover, I kept it simple by adding a blue ribbon from another baby shower and spelled out the baby's name, Chance, in safety pins. 

 the front cover

 the first page

 the page of "firsts"

 come to me my animal friends

I had a great time making it and really hope that Emily and Tony are as happy with it as I am!

For my sister,

--Am

How To Get a New-to-You Treadmill

On Sunday, I woke up and was excited to get in my workout. It can sometimes be a hard thing to talk myself into, but that day it was easy. Why? Because I am on the final episode for season 2 of Angel. I was excited to see how the crew got back to the real world. So, I was getting into my stride about five minutes in and the treadmill speeds up. It's going so fast, I have to jump off or else meet my fate thrown into the closet. Once off, my first thought is that maybe I somehow slid the bar up to make it go faster. I check the bar, and it's at the normal spot. Then I think I better hurry up and turn it off before it wakes up Alex. He's not always the happiest when woken up early! Quickly, I pull out the red key and the machine starts to slow down, but not stop. It sputters for a little bit before stopping completely. I put the key back in and try to change the pace, but it sputters on and off. I think back to the day before when I remember a burning smell while running. I didn't think anything of it because I'm an idiot. It would have had to have been on fire for me to notice something was wrong. What's that they say about hindsight? That will come into play later on. Here are some photos of the 12 year old Proform Treadmill I took from my parent's house when I bought our house:

my old Proform (this was not the original location)

the very high-tech control panel

Since I've started this exercise routine, I immediately got freaked out that I would stop exercising and gain all my weight back. As soon as Alex got up, I had him helping me find treadmills on Craigslist. And by 4pm, we found a NordicTrack for $250 in Anderson. It seemed like a pretty good deal. Speed and incline are controlled electronically (the Proform was all manual) and it has built in fans. Plus, it's wide enough that Al says he might try it out. When we get to Anderson, we barely get it in the car. Al's seat was pushed up so far he looked like he was driving a clown car. It was quite funny! 

We're home with a little bit of daylight to spare. I pick up pizza for dinner, scarf it down, and get ready to unload the new machine. Our neighbor was going to help, but we couldn't get ahold of him, so I decided to help. Al is at the back pulling the machine out and I'm in the back of the car lifting it up over the wheel wells. LIfting, lifting, lifting, pushing, pushing, pushing, and it finally got over the wells. And as soon as it was over, it came down hard. I should have taken my rings offs (hindsight) because my huge rock got stuck and pinned my left ring finger under the machine. I pulled it out, took the ring, and started shaking my hand to ease the pain. That's when I looked at my ring and noticed it was completely bent. And a little later, the stone fell out.

 my poor ring

Needless to say, we stopped with the process and waited for our neighbor to come over. Pete and Al were able to get the new treadmill out of the car and upstairs, while I iced my finger and chatted with Abby and Izzy. Abby and Pete took the old treadmill off our hands (it went back to normal after it had cooled down). I warned them to shut it off if there were any kind funky smells coming from it! Here's the new treadmill:

as if you were running on it

the backside?

In the end, we got a pretty good deal for a barely used treadmill (although I do hate giving up my old one). My ring is covered under full warranty, and will be ready for pick-up later this week. My finger is bruised and a little sore, but nothing too bad. Now tomorrow, I will finally get to watch the last episode of Angel Season 2. 

Always look for the positive!

--Am 

How To Fit Into Your Wedding Dress

Most women have a goal to lose weight before their wedding. Some will even go the length to buy a dress that's a size or two smaller for motivation to slim down. I am not most women. Of course I didn't want to look like a boat on my wedding day, but I wasn't so unhappy with how I looked that it would motivate me enough to change my ways. Besides that, I picked a dress that was slimming and that made me look and feel amazing!

I would say that the dress fit just right. However, some of the pictures and my poses give the impression of back fat. Oh well! I still got married, and it was still the most rockin' wedding I've been to. And I must say that I was happy with everything (even the back fat)! Here's what I looked like then (October 16, 2009).

getting ready--easy to see the fit of the dress

check out that back fat!

After a year of being married and switching jobs, I decided it was time to get my body in shape. If Alex I were to even start thinking about kids, I wanted to be in good shape. How was I going to do this? I've never been very good at that kind of stuff. I usually only get motivated when I have someone pushing me to do it. I signed up for Weight Watchers Online, hoping that paying the $17 monthly charge would be enough of a motivation. It was a start! It taught me to change my eating habits. The plan is very structured, which, being an accountant, was what made it easy and fun for me. It was like a game to see if I could come in at the right points value. And being a saver, I saved all my extra points for the weekend just in case we went out or wanted some wine with dinner. There were some weeks when I didn't even use them. 

After a couple months, I had lost 10 pounds all by changing my diet. Awesome! However, I had hit a plateau. Oh crap, that meant it was time I started working out. How could I ever motivate myself for that? Well, I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, the tv series from the late 90's). It has fabulous fight scenes and made me want to kick butt. It was a treat for me to watch Buffy if I worked out. (I've since completed Buffy and have moved to Angel). After a couple months of that, I hit my goal weight of 120. I've been in maintaining mode since December and have managed to stay slim. I don't strictly follow WW (and have stopped paying for it), but I use the general idea and run at least three times a week. I couldn't be happier with my image! 

Here's me trying on my wedding dress being 20 plus pounds lighter (March 4, 2011).

look at all that excess dress!

yes, that's two wine bottles in there to keep my dress held up

the weight loss has taken its toll on the girls

Happy weight loss!

--Am

How To Paint on Canvas

There have been two additional Wine and Canvas events that I've attended but have not yet blogged about. I know you are all very sad! The second one I attended (which is the first in this blog) was at the Stone Creek in Greenwood. Our artist was a guy named Greg and we were painting flowers in the field. Can I say easy? However, you would never know it because Greg was not a good teacher. He didn't have much of a presence, and I felt myself often moving ahead or doing my own thing. One plus was that I won the raffle they had during the break. Yeah, a free appetizer at Stone Creek!

flowers in the field

My third trip was on a Saturday with Katherine (Al's mom). I was a little nervous about the painting we were doing because it was super detailed. Then when I found out we would have the same artist that we had last time, I got really nervous. Additionally, we were sitting on stools. That's right, no backs on the chairs for three hours. I'm a weakling! The crowd was also very different from the crowd on the southside. They were louder and more annoying! It was nice to spend some time with Katherine. However, we are going to have to do an easier painting the next time, so we actually have time to visit. I was too involved with this painting and how it looked that I was beginning to get stressed. So, no more difficult, detailed paintings for me. Here's how it turned out:

New Orleans at night

I must also say a big thank you to Alex for making me feel better about it. I was beating myself up about how it turned out, but he thinks it's a little abstract, which he prefers. Katherine's, on the other hand, was awesome! I wish I took my camera with me so I could have taken a picture of her painting and you could compare the greatness with the amateur. 

Until I paint again!

--Am