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Entries in Buster (3)

Thursday
21Jan2010

10 Things That Make Me Happy

DateThursday, January 21, 2010 at 4:43PM

I was given this lovely Happy 101 Award at the blog Confessions of a Compulsive Eater and the timing couldn't be any more perfect as I am having the sort of day (okay, two days) that makes me want to list ten things bothering me.  Focusing instead on ten things that make me happy is exactly what I need, I think!

The rules are to copy the award image and display it on your blog, list 10 things that make you happy, try to do at least one of those things today and then pass the award along to 10 bloggers who brighten your day.

So, without further ado, here are ten things that make me happy:

1.  Seeing the hubby at unlikely times.

This is the one I got to do today!  The hubby has off today so he came to my job and we went to lunch at Chipotle, mmmm.  It makes my whole morning better knowing I get to see him at lunchtime - and then my whole afternoon is better because I'm so happy and relaxed after our lunch together.

2.  When Buster pees on the paper.

Unless you've had to train a puppy, you cannot fully know the joy involved when your puppy, who has peed on the carpet half a dozen times in the past half day, decides he will FINALLY GO ON THE PAPER.  (Note: yes, I know paper training is controversial and not always advised, but because Buster is/was so small (he's growing fast!) and it was so bitterly cold out for the past two months, he was not allowed to be outside so paper was the only option.  We're planning to start him on walks soon - maybe today? - as long as this slightly warmer weather holds up.)

3.  Finding a recipe that's relatively easy to make, not time-consuming, and super delicious.

The hubby and I have been world-class slackers in the cooking department over the past few months.  This is something I plan to work at remedying over the next few months and on and ongoing basis.  I want our son to grow up eating home-cooked meals at the table with both parents (when possible, based on work schedules).  Right now, the hubby and I don't even eat together often. (Stupid work schedules.)  So I love finding a recipe that isn't too involved, that I can whip up after work (or trust the hubby to whip up - he IS a good cook), and that tastes good enough to want to make again.

4.  A clean, organized home

I hate clutter.  Hate it.  I hate stacks of things.  Even if they're not physically in my way, they're visually in my way and seeing clutter definitely affects my ability to concentrate and be relaxed (hence my current "re-do my whole home" project).  I actually don't enjoy the actual act of cleaning, it feels SO good after the fact, that it seems pretty painless.

5.  Reading

Over the past five years, I haven't had as much time to read for myself as I would have liked since I was usually in school and that reading takes over most of my "free" time.  But this past month, between semesters, I've really been enjoying reading for myself.  I've read baby name books, pregnancy books, pregnancy magazines, and am plowing through Gail Collins' When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (which I've been reading on my nook, oooh). I'm about 3/4 of the way through, so I'll save my thoughts on the book for when I post about finishing it, but if you're interested in feminism and women's rights, READ THIS.  Next up on my nook is Margaret Atwood's latest, The Year of the Flood.  However, my shipment of schoolbooks for this semester arrived last night and so I think my joyous free reading time may be pushed aside once again (although, thankfully, I often love when I have to read for school).  If my nook were any smaller, I'd be trying to sneak it into my staff meeting today, for sure.

6.  Closure

I don't like things being unfinished, so I get really excited and happy when something is completed.  This week my financial aid for the Spring semester finally got settled, as did my final course grade for last semester (an A-, nice), AND my transfer credits are on their way to being applied, which will put me more more than halfway through my current degree program.  I love the feel of a steady march forward and the small steps of completion along the way.

7.  Penguins (obviously, if you've noticed the name of the blog)

Ohh, I just want to cuddle those baby penguins forever!!
(photo courtesy of Huffington Post)

Yesterday was National Penguin Awareness Day, which I didn't mention because I was so focused on National Cheese Lover's Day.  But I do love penguins, too - probably 99% as much as I love cheese.  Um, just not as a food, obviously.  I think penguins are just such cool creatures.  They're so interesting to look at and observe and I love that the female penguins go off and gather food (fish) while the male penguins stay and nurture the eggs and raise the newly hatched babies. 

At Christmas, I wrapped my nephew TJ's presents in penguin paper.  When my sister asked him what they were, he said, "Pengies!"  I could have melted.  So cute.  Just as cute as those baby penguins.

8. Sonogram appointments

This pregnancy has confirmed for me what I already knew: I am no longer the girl that was known for being so laid back all the time.  Nope, I am now a total chronic worrier.  Unless I see my little baby boy on the sonogram screen and the tech is telling me he's perfect, I cannot fully believe that everything with him is fine.  (I've also found this behavior stretching in regards to the puppy, too - if he's not making noise in his crate, I'm convinced something terrible's happened and he's sick or worse.)  I hate to ask, but does this worrying go away after pregnancy?  Something tells me it only gets worse.  I don't want to be that mother that hovers over her child 24/7, so I need to get a grip on this.  But for now, I look forward to the appointments where a doctor tells me everything looks perfect.  The joy at those exact moments is immeasurable.

9. Reading (and dare I, writing?) poetry

Statue of Walt Whitman at my M.A. alma mater, Rutgers-Camden
Source

Admittedly, I don't get to do this as often as I'd like to.  As an undergrad, poetry was practically a part of my everyday life since I was a creative writing major and heading toward a final undergrad project involving both writing and studying/analyzing poetry.  I had a lot more free time as well as quiet time then and I've found it hard to make the time/space for poetry in my life as it is now.

Mark Doty posted on his blog today that he's teaching a graduate course on "Whitman, Dickinson, and their twentieth century heirs." I nearly spit out my coffee (decaf) when I read that; THAT is my dream graduate course: my favorite poetry taught by my favorite contemporary poet.  What I wouldn't give to take that course.

So I need to find a way to get/keep poetry in my life without it coming to me through a course.  No plan for this yet, but going to let the idea stew for a while.

10. Getting to see my friends

Since the majority of my friends are from my college days, none of them live nearby and I often go months, if not half a year, without seeing them.  Even my friends (the ones I had before I met the hubby and his friends became my friends) who live in the same state, I don't get to see them more frequently than every 4, 6, 8+ months, unfortunately.  It sucks tremendously.  So when I do get to see them, I treasure that time like few other things.  This weekend I get to see two good friends because they'll be at my niece Brooke's baptism and then next weekend, the hubby and I are hoping to get to Maryland to visit some friends.  After this, the next time I'll see many of them will probably be at my baby shower (sometime in April).  I hate that it's so rare, but I'm glad that these friendships can sustain the distances - of both geography and time.

Okay, so time for me to pass on this award to 10 bloggers who brighten my day!  Not only do I read the following blogs regularly, but I eagerly await each new post.  These are the folks who, when I see they have a new post, I get that "Ooh, yay!" feeling.  The first five are people who actually know I exist:

1. Delightfully Sweet

2. I Can Grow People/Wife.Mom.Artist.Geek

3. Jeune Marie (Okay, she probably doesn't know of me, but she and her blog are too beautiful not to mention.)

4. Mommy Words

5. Nagehan Bayindir

The second five are blogs I get that "Ooh, yay!" feeling for who have no clue I exist because they are way bigger in the bloggy world than me:

6. Girl's Gone Child (I know, I know; you know I love her - but her blog posts get the biggest "ooh yay" feelings)

7. PhD in Parenting

8. Smitten Kitchen

9. The Pioneer Woman (I am officially a fan/addict now)

10. The Feminist Breeder

AuthorCandice | Comment3 Comments |
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Monday
11Jan2010

The Puppy and the Princess

DateMonday, January 11, 2010 at 10:40AM

This was our first weekend having Buster, our new Yorkie/Cairn puppy, home with us.  We're acclimating him to our home little by little for two key reasons:

1. He's a puppy and requires a lot of care right now - more than we can give him on some work days.  Some days we have a nice alternating schedule that means we don't see each other as much as we'd like, but we will be around for the puppy.  But for now my mom, who isn't working, can spend all day with him at her house.

2. Oreo.

See, Oreo is a princess - an eleven year old princess.  She rules her domain while accepting help from no minions.  She is not-so-at-large (about 13 lbs on average) but quite in charge.

Being eleven, Oreo does not like to play very often.  She'll play fetch and throw her rawhide around once in a while, but not at the rate and frequency of a terrier puppy.  And she doesn't like being bothered by other dogs.

Oreo and Buster met twice previously at my parents' house, then this Friday we brought Buster to our home for the whole weekend.  To give you an idea of how different Buster and Oreo's activity levels are, my parents' nickname for Buster is Zippy.  Oreo's is Old Lady.  So, yeah.

The basic issue is that Buster wants to play with Oreo . . . because he wants to play basically any time he's awake.  And if you don't play with him, he will keep bothering you - jumping up, nipping at you, and so on (stuff we are trying to train against, in case you were concerned).

Oreo is pretty patient so while he jumped up and down yapping at her, she just stared at him . . . until she had enough.  And then she barked back.  And that was when we became that house that has two barking dogs.  Oh hell no.  So I started working with Buster on not barking at Oreo.  Oreo already only barks when another dog is bothering her; she's well trained, so that's not a concern - but she will defend herself against the twerp jumping at her.

Other than that, though, Buster was very good considering he's only two months old.  We "puppy-proofed" the house as much as possible, but he still ended up being attracted to chewing on a few remaining wires and we are still working on the housebreaking.  He's VERY good at peeing on the paper (his foster mom did a great job paper training him) . . . uh, but he needs some work on where he makes his other deposits.  Once it's warmer out and we can walk him, that will help . . . but for now we're just keeping an eye on him, putting him on the paper, and cleaning up regularly.

So it's not Buster I'm worried about; it's Oreo.  She is an old lady, even though Shih Tzus can live ten to eighteen years, depending on health and size.  I would like Oreo's golden years to be happy ones - and I have no doubt she'll acclimate to Buster; it's just going to take a little while.

On Saturday, after a round of barking, she finally nipped him on the nose - at which point he yelped, backed up, and wandered off.  He then bothered her noticeably less on Sunday, which I'm hoping means she adequately asserted herself and he's learning his place.

Mom? Oreo sent me to my room.

Okay, actually, he goes in his crate by himself.  He actually likes it in there.

I'll just stay out of Oreo's way now . . . at least for a minute.

AuthorCandice | Comment3 Comments |
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Monday
04Jan2010

From house to home: a resolution

DateMonday, January 4, 2010 at 12:58PM

I'm with Brittany at MommyWords in that the New Year really feels like it starts today.  We're really conditioned to begin things anew on Mondays: jobs, diets (yech), exercise plans, schedules.  When was the last time you started a whole new routine on a day other than Monday?  It doesn't happen too often.  I even started my 101 in 1001 list on a Monday.

So I felt little motivation to think about New Year's resolutions before yesterday, as I began to ponder the new week (and, really, new year) ahead.  I have tended to make New Year's resolutions in the past and, like many other people's, they usually include behaviors or goals that fall in the "life-betterment" category, like: eating no fast food, quitting soda, exercising more, spending more time outside, and so on.  But a lot of those things are already on my 101 in 1001 list, so I don't have the usual resolutions this year.  It's a big year of big changes coming up, so what would I resolve to do?  Be the best mom I can be?  Well, duh, clearly I'm going to do that; I don't need a resolution to remind me.

But there is one thing I want to dedicate significant time and attention to this year: making our house into our home.

We rent the first floor of a house, so in a way we have both an apartment and/or a house, terminology-wise, and we've lived here for almost a year.  However, there are only two pictures hanging up, both in the living room.  The rest are either unframed, not yet printed or not yet hung.  (Getting that done is one of my new 101 in 1001 changes.)  When someone walks in, I don't think there's much that says, "Hey, Tom and Candice live here" (other than the stacks of schoolbooks, multiple stacks of school papers, and growing stacks of Mustang 5.0 magazines; guess which of these items isn't mine).  So the whole home-making idea is going to go beyond just hanging things, but that'll be a part of it.

The first impetus for this is, of course, The Force (and, just to note, dictionary.com defines "impetus" as "a moving force," so there you go).  We're changing the "office" into the nursery and I have some very definite developing ideas about how that room is going to look.  I want the rest of the apartment to have that same purposeful feel - that it was designed specifically with the inhabitant(s) in mind.

The second impetus for this is:

Is that not the cutest pupper face ever?

Meet Buster, the half Yorkie/half Cairn puppy that my parents bought my husband for his birthday.  My parents just picked him up on Saturday (Buster will be two months old this Wednesday) and he is currently residing at my parents' house since my mom isn't working and can watch/feed/play with him all day.  He's little and young so he needs someone around to make sure he gets his mid-day meal, gets to do his business on the newspaper (he's already trained!), and gets to play.

Going nose-to-nose with my mom . . . look how wee tiny he is!

We're going to see how he progresses, grows, eats, et cetera, and determine when he'll move over to our house full-time when it seems like he is (and we are) ready.  Before that, though, we need to cover up our outlets (apparently puppies like to lick outlets), shampoo the carpets, and make sure anything dangerous is out of his reach (which, admittedly you can see, is not that high - lol).  But we need to do a bit of baby-proofing anyway, so this kind of blends with impetus #1.

(And, yes, it is relatively crazy to get a puppy when you're expecting a baby.  This isn't news to me, but he was a gift so what could I say.  Actually, I'll tell you what I will say - this is the hubby's dog primarily so if the time comes that he's an issue, it's the hubby's issue to handle.)

So there are those two little wee ones.  Then there's me.  I hate being in a home that feels like it's without character, without organization, without peace, and with clutter.  I hate it.  I also hate that if you look around, the ratio of my stuff to the hubby's is about 9:1.  I have, admittedly, run the place over with my things (err, mainly my books), so I'm setting out to give my closets and dressers a serious going-over (charity donation coming up) and I'm also going to pack up a bunch of books that I don't foresee needing for school or teaching (those will go in the basement). 

I've only ever had my own room (well, since I was a teenager) or my own apartment, so it's new to me to blend my belongings with someone else.  Not unlike learning to blend our finances, this is taking time but I finally feel ready to take it on.  It's not easy to pack up items you're attached to or used to seeing regularly.  My books feel like friends, honestly, and so do some of my clothes.  When I pack them up, I actually tend to say good-bye (or bye for now) to them.  (Am I the only cuckoo one that does this?  I'm kind of scared to even know.) 

But perhaps the pregnancy is helping me move along with this.  My life and home, in large part, are clearly going to belong to someone new now.  They'll be mine, but ours - and that "ours" is all three of us, so I'd like our home to at least accurately reflect the current two - yours truly and the hubby - before we two become a three.  I don't expect to finish this resolution before my due date (May 19), but maybe the nesting will kick in and I'll be in super-future-Mom mode in April and get more done than I anticipate.  If I don't, that's okay.  I'm giving myself the year for this.  I hope it takes less than a year, but it's okay if the year is what we need.

AuthorCandice | Comment5 Comments |
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