Monday Five Countdown

Last June 2011 Monday Five Countdown! Let's get this thing rollin'...

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. My weekends with Nate. The hubby works every Saturday and Sunday (roughly 9-5) so I have two full days with Nate by myself. I thought it might be hard having my only two days off every week spent being the sole parent at home, but I am LOVING it every weekend.

2. Buster did not get sick this weekend. See my "1 random thing" below for details, but for here, just SO grateful he was not sick this weekend.

3. It's break week at work (the week between quarters) so there are no students here, only some co-workers and so it's quiet and I can put my iPod on speakers and listen to whatever I want.

4. My parents went down the shore for the day yesterday and the weather was absolute perfection. I'm glad they had such a great day.

5. This Friday starts "Summer Fridays" at work - meaning I get out at 1pm every Friday until the end of August. Hooray!

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. The water park that's one town over from us. There's a park with a playground that also has a little sprinkler park that kids can play in and I'm thinking about taking Nate there this upcoming weekend. I took him there yesterday to try out the baby swing again. Surprisingly, he didn't immediately freak out in it like he always did before so I think we're making some headway. Mostly, though, he just wanted to walk through the park, following the path and chasing his own shadow.

2. Money/budget/bills. Ugh. Don't even want to talk about it.

3. My major project at work. This is a do-or-die week for it and I just want to go lie down and stop thinking about it.

4. The Jay-Z book I borrowed from a student months ago. I really should read it this week and finally give it back to him.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Read that Jay-Z book!

2. Take Nate to the water park and take pictures.

3. Relax.

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Money. I am worried, hard-core, about paying all our bills - the type of worried where you'd rather just not think about all of it and let it all just happen. (Anyone else do that?) It's like the bill paying version of not studying for a test you're worried about. But in the past day or two, I've made myself feel more positive about it all. We WILL be okay. We WILL get through.

2. Summer. So far the weather has been great. I'm dreading the 90+ degree days but so far we've had beautiful summer weather.

One Random Thing

1. So, yeah, Buster. Friday night we were going to have hot dogs for dinner. I had the water on the stove almost boiling and the hot dogs were lined up, ready to go. I decided to run to the bathroom for a minute and then come back. I come back and I hear plastic crinkling and don't see Buster, so I know he's behind the counter with something. I look at the counter... and the hot dogs are gone. I run around the kitchen island and find Buster with the empty hot dog wrapper.

HE ATE ALL SIX HOT DOGS. In, like, literally a minute. Now, mind you, he's a massive pain in my ass but he's never taken food off the counter before.

I just stood there going, "Oh my god. OH MY GOD.  Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!"

Then I began to worry about the weekend. As mentioned above, the hubby would be working so it'd just be me and Nate . . . and . . . a lot of mess in the kitchen??? Oh god, I hoped not!

And, thankfully - very, very, VERY thankfully - Buster did not get sick in any way over the weekend. No puking, no anything else. He was perfectly fine.

Stupid dog.

So that's my Monday Five! If you do the Monday Five, let me know. Link up! :)

Monday 5!

If you're new to the Monday Five Countdown, it started one day when I got tired of starting every work week feeling annoyed at or dreading something. I decided instead to focus on the things I'm grateful for and to simply mention and (hopefully) move on from the things needling away at me. I have found that it honestly helps so I highly suggest giving it a try. :)

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. Apparently places not all that far from us got more snow today? SOOOO grateful we didn't!!

2. After months (MONTHS!!!) without a working dryer, we have one! I have never been so happy to do laundry, seriously.

3. We finally bought new bath mats. They are midnight blue and plush and fluffy. My feet felt happy and warm getting out of the shower this morning.

4. Nate has had a bit of a cold for a week; he's been coughing and sneezing -  basically shooting boogers all over the place - and hasn't been very interested in eating. However, he's getting better which means fewer boogers and more food. Good signs!

5. Our friend Mickey (the mouse) has not reappeared since yesterday afternoon. Hopefully we never see him again.

Bonus item of gratitude: the hubby ate strawberries in a salad on Saturday! He hates strawberries but somehow these were acceptable (in this very yummy salad from Scary Mommy). Hurrah! Bring on more fruit this summer!

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. My teeth. I need to make an appointment for the dentist because I'm pretty sure I have a cavity and the tooth is starting to bother me regularly.

2. Wednesday is the start of Lent and while I am not really religious, I do like to partake in the practice of giving something up for Lent as a way to strengthen my resolve and test myself a bit as a person. This year I'm giving up something kind of huge, for me. Tune in Wednesday for the meltdown.

3. Mushrooms. I hate them. The hubby hates them. However, so many recipes I'd want to make include them. I want to know what I can use as a substitute so the proportions of the recipe aren't thrown off (i.e. I don't end up with too much broth in a soup or too much sauce in a pasta dinner). Any suggestions?

4. Sectionals. We still don't have a sofa in the living room (just a loveseat, an armchair, and the glider). Nate's first birthday and party will be in two months (two months??) and we probably should have some more seating by then.

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. Finish half of the two research projects I have to work on for school.

2. Clean the kitchen floor. Really, really well.

3. Find the bottom of my hamper. It's been months since we've had a single day with a completely empty hamper. Now that we have a working dryer, it's time!

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Buster. He's back in stabbing-danger territory again. As per Liza's suggestion (thank you Liza!!!), we bought Buster a smaller crate and removed his blanket/towel from it. This way he will be reluctant to pee in there since he'd have to lay in it. And it worked - two mornings in a row now! However... he peed on the kitchen floor THREE TIMES yesterday. He hasn't done that even once in at least over a month.  WTF dog?? *sigh* I don't know if the new crate made him angry or it was the downpouring rain that made him not want to pee outside. I just don't know. I just know that the hubby hasn't been that angry at Buster in quite a while. But today is really beautiful out (if a bit chilly) and he didn't pee in the crate this morning so maybe, hopefully, it was the rain and we can have our first pee-free day in ages.

2. That really might be it. Buster is draining all of my "working to be positive" energy right now. Please, Buster, get on track and be a good dog so I can go back to worrying about things like chipped manicures.

One Random Thing

1. According to the hubby, Nate said, "Thank you" at the story the other day, repeating it after the hubby said it to the cashier. Considering Nate doesn't say any words (just babbles a lot), I find this incredibly hard to believe but apparently the cashier heard it and said, "You're welcome, little man." So, really, were Nate's first words, "Thank you"?? Do babies have first phrases instead of words? We're pretty sure he tries to say "Buster" sometimes and he was saying something that sounded like "bug" when I was saying "books" to him yesterday, so I don't know... but I think some words are on their way!

Bonus random thing: new R.E.M. album comes out tomorrow! Yay!!!!!

 Do you do the Monday Five Countdown?  Link up below!  I want to read them :-)



Doggone It

Or so I wish, most of the time.

Setting: The first days of November 2009

"I'm going to run this by you first since I don't know what you'll think, but I really want to do something special for Tom's 30th birthday next week and I know he's always wanted a Yorkie and Paula's Cairn and Yorkie are having puppies soon and so I thought one of those puppies would make a great birthday present for him. Do you think that'll be okay?"

No. No. A million times, no.

That's what I wanted to say. That's what I wish I said.  But here's what I actually said:

"Umm. Sure. I guess. You can ask him; I'll leave it up to him."

No. No. A million times, no.

And that is how now, sixteen months later, we have a sixteen month old Cairn/Yorkie mix named Buster. A sixteen month old dog who, through only some fault of his own, has had four different homes, in chronological order: my parents' house, our old apartment, my in-laws' house, and our new home.

Buster was a teeny tiny puppy when we got him, but he was the biggest in his litter. Buster's mother almost died after giving birth to him, his three brothers, and one sister. As the biggest of the puppies, Buster seemed to take charge. His (human) foster mother told us how he was the first to learn how to drink out of the water dispenser and "showed" his siblings how to do so. He was just a little pipsqueak of a puppy, but he seemed to naturally take charge.

In short, I think we got a dog with mommy/abandonment issues.  (No, no, a million times, no.)

Because the hubby and I both worked full-time and didn't have the time to stay home and train Buster, he went to live with my parents since my mother wasn't working. He was paper trained and did a good job of sticking to the paper . . . most of the time. He was a voracious eater and a fierce playmate with seemingly endless energy, easily exhausting the large mixed breed dog my parents have.

After a month or so, Buster came to live with us. It quickly became evident that we needed to know how to train him, so we signed up for puppy training classes at a local pet store. I was at the end of my second trimester and we wanted Buster to be whipped into shape before the baby was born.

That didn't happen. Buster was hyper. Really hyper. And he just would not take to housebreaking. After being paper-trained, he didn't seem to want to let go of the option to do his business in the house. It was annoying and really something a couple about to have their first baby should not have to be dealing with.

And I continued to wish I just said, "No. Don't buy us the dog." But I hadn't and now he was our responsibility.

In the meantime, Buster's brother got returned to the Humane Society two or three times because his owners were finding him too difficult to handle. Friends of my parents adopted Buster's sister and also repeatedly considered returning her (to date, they haven't, though).

If it were up to me, Buster would have been returned. Easily. And a while ago.

After Nate was born, Buster went to live with my in-laws, who graciously kept him for us for six months - far longer than we had originally asked. But we couldn't envision how we'd manage both Buster and the baby in our little apartment so they kept him until we moved to someplace bigger and got settled in. Unfortunately, their house is busy and hectic and they were unable to give Buster the sort of training attention that he needed and so whatever progress we had made was mostly lost.

We are still working on housebreaking Buster and I wonder daily how nice life would be if I didn't have to clean his crate and mop the floor nearly every single day. How nice it'd be if I could let Nate crawl on the kitchen floor without having to scrub and disinfect it first. How nice it'd be not to have a huge gate across the doorframe from the kitchen to the dining room. How nice it'd be not to hear barking every single time our upstairs neighbors come and go. How nice it'd be if I'd just had the courage sixteen months ago to say no - no, don't buy us that dog.

Then I think about Buster. Where would he be if we said no? Would he have been returned several times like his brother? Would he have found a home much more suitable than ours - one where he wouldn't have been shuffled around so much? There's no way of knowing who would be better or worse off.

Around noon today, I got Nate up from his nap while the hubby took a shower. Nate and I sat in the glider for a bit, talking and singing songs. Then I plopped him on the floor and headed toward the kitchen to grab a snack. As I entered the dining room, I came to a screeching halt - literally. I stopped short and screeched. Sitting there on the floor next to one of our dining room chairs was a little gray mouse.

I spun around, dashed to Nate, scooped him up, and ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.

"Auughhh! There's a mouse in the dining room! Nate and I are going to hide in the bathroom here with you until you finish your shower."

We had a mouse once at our previous apartment. I came home from work and there it was, dead on the kitchen floor. As best as I could guess, based on the pristine condition of that mouse, it seems Buster thought it was a toy, chased it, caught it, shook it, broke its neck, and then deemed it uninteresting, dropping it and leaving it alone. Either that or the mouse took one look at Buster and had a heart attack and keeled over.

I don't mind bugs and spiders. I've even dealt with a bird in my room at my parents' house - three times. But I just do not want to ever have to deal with a mouse, even if it's tiny.

So today, I'm glad we have Buster. He didn't get today's mouse yet (it scooted out of the kitchen through a heating grate), but he's on the job. And it's obvious he knows he has a job to do. As a terrier, it's what he's made for and I'm happy to let him have the sense of fulfilled character that taking care of our little friend Mickey will give him.  Yech.

The hubby won't hear talk of returning Buster, so he's our responsibility to keep. As much as I think the idea that everything happens for a reason is completely bogus, I can't help but feel that it's true sometimes (the "sometimes" being what makes it so bogus). Regardless, I like to think that Buster is better off with us than he may have been with another family because we just keep trying to get him properly integrated into our home.

And now, if you'll excuse me, he's barking his head off. Time to go see if it is at a man or a mouse.

This post is an entry for the Living Out Loud project.  This month’s theme was “Tempting Fate”.  If you’d like to take part in future projects, click here!

Monday Five Countdown

I love when life forces me to feel happy when I really, really want to wallow.  Well, that's not entirely true.  Sometimes I get peeved because when I want to wallow, I really want to wallow.  But that doesn't make for good blog reading and throughout most of last week I didn't post anything because I was in just too miserable of a mood.  And I wondered, how would I do my countdown on Monday?  What in the world could I be grateful for, much less what five things, ugh!

But life can be surprising, in the simplest, most pleasant ways.

Five Things I'm Grateful For

1. A reader of this blog sent me a Barnes and Noble gift card so that I could buy Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.  Just typing that sentence is making me tear up.  I am so astounded and grateful for this act of generosity and really cannot believe that someone that I don't actually "know" in the real-life sense cares enough to do something so remarkably nice.  Thank you, Rebecca - thank you so very, very much.  I cannot wait to post about the book and I promise to pay this kind deed forward.

2. The whole weekend was warm, if a bit rainy at times.  But what this means is that the crazy ice and snow melted a bit.  There are still two, three, four foot mounds of snow on every available patch of grass, but the sidewalks around my house are 98% ice free, which makes walking the dogs significantly easier.

3. Which brings me to the third thing I'm grateful for, which is the hubby's general attitude.  We have had a rough week with the dogs, Buster in particular.  And I always find myself fighting the urge to punt Buster to the moon.  He seriously makes me want to throttle him.  Well, last night we came home from a lovely SuperBowl watching evening at my parents' house to find quite the doggy mess.  The hubby, while extremely pissed off, didn't yell, didn't physically threaten either dog.  He just muttered and swore quietly while he cleaned.  I think most other people may have blown their top, but he was so remarkably calm.  One of us has to be and I'm glad it's him.

4. My mom made all sorts of yummy food for the SuperBowl and sent us home with all the leftovers.  Yum!

5. Saturday we went to see Kate so she could take Nate's Valentine's card pictures.  It was really good to see her for the first time in two months, to get out of the house and out of the immediate area for a few hours, to take a drive with my two guys, and to have Kate get to see how much Nate has grown in the past two months.  It was a really great afternoon.

Four Things I Can't Stop Thinking About

1. My student loan check.  It should come in the mail any day now.  Please let that day be today.

2. The dogs.  Well, mainly Buster.  Oreo is twelve years old, so when she has an incident in the house, I know why it is and there's usually something I could have done differently.  But with Buster, there's just no pattern, no predicting, no correcting.  I don't know what to do.

3. Homework.  I did NOT finish my homework this weekend.  School is tomorrow.  I'm at work today.  The hubby has errands to run tonight.  Gah.  I really, really need to figure out how to fit in my schoolwork to our new life.  It's so hard to leave Nate with the hubby in the other room after a long day of work and go do homework.  I'd much, much rather play with Nate.

4. Pants.  Have I mentioned I need new pants?  Once we have a little bit of funds, I have to buy maybe two pairs of inexpensive work pants.  (And did I ever mention that when I dress Nate, I sing, "Pants pants pants pants" to the tune of that really awful "Shots" song?  Ha.  So now every time I even type the word pants, I hear that in my head.)

Three Things I Want To Accomplish This Week

1. FINISH MY FRIGGIN HOMEWORK BEFORE MONDAY MORNING.  Must figure this out (and next weekend is buuuuusy so this will be a really good week to figure out how to do this).

2. Actually complete the laundry.  Because we are still living without a working dryer, we machine wash and then air-dry all our clothes, so it takes a full day to do a load of laundry or two because of the drying time.  So we haven't actually done all the laundry in over a month and there are things at the bottom of the hamper that I'd like to wear again at some point.

3. Get a new student ID.  Turns out that taking a semester off from grad school made my ID "dead" so I have to go get a new one.

(Note: Notice I did not say I wanted to move the Christmas decorations and supplies to my parents' house - because it got done!  Finally!!  Hurrah!)

Two Things I Am Working To Be Positive About

1. Buster.  I want to punt him.  But more than that, I want to figure out how to help him become a good dog.  I just can't figure it out.

2. The hubby's job prospects.  This job market is truly frightening and without a four year degree, he's at an additional disadvantage.  I just want him to find something and not knowing when that'll happen is scary.

One Random Thing

1. My bloggy (ha, blahggy) friend Liza from Blahggy is a panelist on Momversation!  Her first video posted today.  I absolutely adore Momversation (and have since before I was even pregnant, when they first began) so I am so incredibly proud of Liza and so remarkably jealous.  What an awesome opportunity. Check out her first video.

So, what's going on with your five this week?  Please share - I do love to read your lists.  Linky Tools now charges for links so no more Linky, boo.  But please leave a link in the comments if you do the Monday Five, okay?  I really love to see your lists.  :)

7 Quick Tuesday Takes - Buster Back Home edition

Having Buster back hasn't been as bad as I had anticipated (so far, anyway).  Here is a further attempt to stay positive about him.

1. Every morning I walk him one mile, first thing when I get up.  (Today is Tuesday, so this is the third day of this new routine.)  As much as I don't like getting up early for this purpose at all, once I get going I don't mind it so much.  It wakes me up, gets my blood flowing, and lets me start thinking about my day.  Also, I've learned that my walking pace has slowed considerably.  I need to switch from boots to sneakers and up my pace.

2. Walking Buster lets me take a leisurely look at the houses in our neighborhood, which I love because they're all different from one another.

3. I took Buster for a two mile walk Saturday night and really enjoyed the opportunity to be alone (okay, semi-alone) with my thoughts.  When, these days, do I ever get to just think for more than 10 seconds without being interrupted by a baby or a student or something?  That two mile walk reminded me of the life I used to lead a few years ago.

4. Buster has peed in the kitchen four times so far, but three of those four were our fault for not taking him out when we needed to.  He also needs to learn how to hold it, but he first needs to be sure that we will take him out when he needs to go if he just waits a little bit longer.

5. Because Buster has never really been given table scraps, he doesn't care when we eat dinner.  He just wanders off and lies down somewhere.  As someone who is used to getting a pupper stare-down during dinner, this is amazing to me (and real incentive to make sure he doesn't start getting table food regularly).

6. Nate absolutely loves Buster.  He smiles when he sees him and laughs hysterically when Buster licks him (ew).  I don't love it when Buster licks him, but I'm glad Nate is building a positive impression of/association with dogs because that's something I think is very important.  (He cries when Buster barks, especially if it wakes him up, but Buster hasn't barked much and I know Nate will adjust with time, as well.)

7. The in-laws, after threatening to drop Buster on our doorstep multiple times over the past few months, now say they miss him.  So for all his Busto Destructo-ness, there has to be something loveable about him.

Extra points for me?  I told the in-laws that if they want to see Buster, all they have to do is come over and visit.

I'll be over here, waiting for sainthood, thanks.