Well, that's kinda freaky.

A while back I got in this feeling sorry for myself stupid girl rut for a couple days. You know, that's annoying "poor me" blog post not too long ago? Yeah, then. Sorry about that, by the way.... I'll try not to blog when I'm being retarded anymore. 

Anyway, so I'm not one to put a ton of cheesy merit into dreams. I mean, I like to think they mean something, but I don't know what that something is, and for all I know they could be the result of aliens invading our brains while we sleep. BUT, I had this "woah" experience this week. 

After the stupid blog post, I was feeling pretty down. I took a nap on the couch with Annie and had this insane dream in which I was sitting with my Great Grandma Louise, who passed away quite a LONG time ago. I was in her old house, which isn't even standing anymore, and I remember every detail from the grooves in the carpet, to the ugly drapes, to the doilies that sat on every single surface. (tangent: what is it with old ladies and doilies anyway?!) 

Anyway, she was teaching me how to crochet, something that I always wanted to learn... but never had the time, and now the two ladies that I would have wanted to teach me have passed. I woke up kinda phased out, and laid there for a minute thinking about it. 

Well, I have this ball of yarn that I've had forever with a crochet hook pierced through it. I don't know where it came from, but I've had it forever. I sat down, and made a hot pad. 

Yeah, apparently my Great Grandma Louise taught me how to crochet last week. Freaky, huh? 

I do stand by the fact that I am incredibly lacking in the talent and friends department, but at least I know how to do SOMETHING... and I put writing ability to work by doing Jon's take home test essay this week. Oops, did I say that?

A few things going on here, one... we are going on vacation next month. Yeah, VACATION to San Diego. I never thought after living in San Diego for 18 years, I'd be going back to visit and call it a vacation.... but I'm excited. It will be the very FIRST time Jon and I will be on vacation by ourselves, and not at someone's house. Don't ge me wrong, I love going to Vegas to visit family, and going to Idaho to see my best friend is one of my favorite places to go... and lake Powell is AAAAMAZING.... but, well, Jon is my husband, and kinda my favorite person in the world, and it will be nice to go away with him and only him. Well, and the thousands of tourists at Disneyland and Sea World and wherever else we go, but you get the point. So, countdown to SoCal.... 17 days. Woot. 

On another note, we made it through Zailey's first heat. Mousse lost some weight refusing to eat a decent portion for three solid weeks, and Zai has been so cooped up she doesn't know what to do with herself, but she will be hitting the dog park soon! Mousse suddenly noticed I'm alive, and now that he's not so distracted has been my shadow all day long. Speaking of Mousse, he might be "servicing a bitch" next week. (psst, for you non breeder folks that means he gets to knock up a female dog.) Hopefully that pans out. 

AND, one more thing. I entered Braxton in this contest to win stuff from Fetching Tags, which I really really really really want to win. SO, if you would be so kind as going to vote for him by "liking" his picture, you'd pretty much make my day. We don't do a ton of contests, and we never win anything, but if we could win this one that'd be pretty AWESOME. Want, want, want. And our charity of choice is of course Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue. 

So, go here: http://www.facebook.com/fetchingtags?sk=wall&filter=1

and find this: 

And like it!

Spooky Time

I love holidays. I don't even know why, really... we don't do much for them, since Jon works so much and my schedule is all over the place, but I still love them.
I wasn't planning on decorating for Halloween this year because let's face it... decorations are expensive! Plus, I really really wanted to go all out for Christmas since we finally live in a place worth decorating, so I figured I'd save my money.
But, thanks to Jon's lovely mother, we are decorating for both! Rod Works is seriously one of my favorite stores ever, and we decked out the fireplace/mantle.
Sooooo.... the new loot!

Is this little mummy not the cutest darn thing you've ever seen?!

I love this witch, I actually bought it last year even though we lived in the apartment, because I couldn't pass it up. My mom used it for a year, and now here she is! The pumpkin is new this year, though.

Could he be any cuter? nope.

Mr. Skeleton.... seriously, whoever comes up with this stuff, I adore them.

Ok, so this was bought at Michael's but it fit in.... plus, it's kinda awesome.
















And, the whole setup. I think I'm going to get some small, plastic pumpkins to maybe paint and fill in some of the extra space, but all in all I'm happy with it. And, I've pretty much decided that I just CAN'T WAIT for Christmas, so I think we will set our tree up when we take this stuff down, and I don't care if it's early! Woot!!

Shadows

You know what gets really old, really fast? Living in the shadows. I really have no neat talents, shoot... I can't even sew a straight line with the machine I thought it would be a great idea to spend $200 on. I can't cook to save my life, and forget baking. I have no kids. (can't even figure out how to make those, apparently.) I was once a halfway decent writer, but seems that one single talent has escaped me. Or I just have zero use for it, not sure which.
And really, having no local friends has officially taken its toll.
Today, I'm really tired of hearing about how great everyone is, and how talented they are.
I'm just that oddball out in the family. My life revolves around work, and my dogs.... no one understands why. Hell, I don't even understand why half the time other than... what else is there? What else am I going to do to fill my time? Dogs it is.

...can I just be pissed off for the night?

Home Sweet Home

I can't believe how time goes by. We have been in our house for 6 months already! Sheesh, you'd think we'd have more of our projects done by now! Sometimes I don't think the yard will EVER get done... not with time and finances the way they are. But that's ok, because in the last 6 months, we've really turned this little hole in the wall into a home.




In the last 6 months We have:
Painted the bedroom green and brown
Painted the kitchen red
Painted the bathroom green
Painted the nursery yellow
Replaced the bathroom mirror
Purchased awesome decorations
Watched the dogs and cats knock down or break every decoration
Darn near replumbed the ENTIRE place
Ripped out trailers full of ugly old bushes
Taken a junk tree out of the front yard. Sorry tree, you were pretty while you were pink, and then you were just messy. And you hit my window too much at night and freaked me out.
Put up the fencing for the side yard
Taken out the rosebushes, but not before Zailey ran though them
Shampoo'd the entire downstairs
Repaired water damage
Gotten more water damage
Purchased a bedroom set! The first real set I've ever had... with a headboard and everything!
Purchased our first living room set. Red Leather... and totally awesome.
Learned how our 50's oven works, and burn less things than we did before
Fell in love with our hardwood floors....
fell, quickly, OUT of love with our hardwood floors
discovered that we much be the home base for every fly that has ever existed
failed to figure out where all the dust comes from
added four pooches to the pack
wondered where all the free time went.


Next stop: parenthood?


Owning our own home has been both the most exhausting and rewarding thing we have done as a married couple. (uhhh... and expensive)

I've lived a couple places. San Diego is nice, but just not for me. Portland is Hell on earth. At least, it was for me, but I kind of lived in the armpit of Portland, in all fairness... and it must not shower much. Denver was wonderful, but still a tad too industrial for me.


Utah is beautiful, and this is where my family is. It ALMOST feels like home, but something is missing. I long for land, mountains, freaking PRIVACY. I have no idea where the next 10 years might take our little family, but it will never change that this is our FIRST real home. We might settle in Northern Idaho, or we might find some hole in the wall Podunk town in Utah somewhere, who knows. As long as we're together... it will, in fact, be home, right Annie? Right.

Zailey is a LadyDane!

So, the result of all that trampoline jumping Monday has been PAINFUL. Yesterday I was kind of sore, but today I'm so sore I can hardly move without wanting to scream, and forget about actually using muscle.

Anyway, so we bit the bullet and got a pretty nifty camera which we've wanted to do for a long time. I'm learning how to use it still, but we're making progress. It's really fun to take pictures of the dogs... and it makes it easy that they're so dang good looking. Haha.


But, what I really wanted to announce, is that miss Zailey is a lady today! She started her first heat this morning. She wants pretty much nothing to do with any of the other dogs, much to Freya's dismay, and Mousse has a new found interest in her, much to Zailey's dismay. This new dynamic will be annoying. She is super mellow and cuddly today which is not exactly in true Zailey fashion, but I'll take it!

I can't believe she's grown up so fast. She is 14 months old now, and it seems like just yesterday she was a little spotty ball of Dane puppy. Now she's a full blown lady Dane!

That also means that we have more of a time frame on our first litter. Pending PennHIP, OFA Heart, and OFA Thyroid tests, (For Zailey, Mousse is already tested and cleared!) and assuming she has a somewhat regular cycle, we will be having our first Zailey x Mousse litter around May 2012.

Jump, Grandpa, Jump!

With as much as Jon and I dream of moving out of town, and onto acreage, we do enjoy having family around. I wish we got to see his family more, but am happy that at least for the time being most of my immediate family is right here in Orem. We are lucky.


Since today was Labor Day, pretty much no one but Jon had to work, so we got together at Tanya's house for a good ol' family shindig. I love family get togethers. Tanya's neighbors recently gave her a trampoline... which is a big disaster waiting to happen with three rowdy kinds, I'm sure, but it's a lot of fun. Today, the "adults" kind of took over. It made for a lot of laughs, and a LOT of good times. I wish Shelly and Nathan could have been there, but we took a few videos, particularly for them. They are HILARIOUS. I just watched them again on my computer, and they're so dumb, perhaps you just had to be there to really get how funny this whole evening is, but nonetheless... for your viewing pleasure...

How many times have you seen 4 generations jumping on a trampoline together? At least one...

This has got to be my all time favorite. Grandpa Albert even had to take a go on the tramp!

And Mom, this one particularly was for Shelly... I just about peed my pants watching this one.

And last, but ccertainly not least, Tanya's message, to Shelly of course.. but totally blogworthy nonetheless.

Moral of the post: I flippin' love my family, and its nights like these that I won't ever forget!

*Right Click and "Watch on Youtube" makes them a lot bigger. 

A wedding, and 20 dead bodies.

Yesterday was a special day. Jon's dad married his beautiful new wife in the Las Vegas LDS Temple and we were so happy to be able to make it out of town, even if only for a few hours, for the wedding. We headed out early Saturday, and got home late Saturday, but it was so worth it. We are so incredibly happy for them.

Then, today is another special day. Well, maybe not so special. I will spare the pictures, but I found one heck of a deal on Duck for the dogs! The only catch is we had to take them live. Jon was a really good sport, and he actually did the slaughtering. He had a really hard time mentally with the first couple. It makes me happy that I have such a loving husband. I'd be a bit worried if killing an animal- even something like a duck- just came easy. He did 17 of them. I've been working on the skinning. I've skinned chickens a couple times- and they are super easy. But, these ducks are so much more tough! I've done 4, which means only 16 more to go. The heat is bad and the flies are terrible so I keep having to take breaks. I have a serious new found appreciation for people who grow, kill, and prep their own food. It's tough work! But, it was a good deal and while we are stable, we are trying to cut back on as many expenses as possible. I have more free time than Jon (well I think ANYONE has more free time than Jon!) so I got the task of the skinning. Just something to think about next time you grab your dinner off a grocery store shelf. It's a lot of flippin' work, and I haven't even begun to think about cleanup yet! I wonder if we could tackle something bigger. Goat, maybe? Hmm....
I'm pretty sure raw feeding is turning us into freaks! LOL

Other than that we are just trucking right along. Hopefully we can get a new camera so we can start adding decent quality pictures to the blog. Until then, at least y'all were spared a duck skinning photo spread, right?