Bentley

This afternoon we are putting our dog Bentley to sleep.  I've been trying to convince Tom to cancel the appointment since the minute we made it.  I know it has to happen but it's killing me.  We got Bentley right after we bought the house.  It was literally love at firt sight.  Tom had spent all day looking up dogs online and when I got home from work he started to show me.  Bentley was like the 5th picture he showed me and I was sold.  He's adorable. 

The problem is.... he has shown agression towards other dogs (including our other dog Smoke) and 3 kids!  The first two kids we could justify.... the first time he was eating and 6 kids surrounded him, of course he would be upset.  The second time a kid was trying to play with him but I think he just saw it as her taking his toys from him.... But the third time was completely unprovoked and uncalled for.  While we don't ahve kids yet, its not fair to Bentley that every time our neice or friends come over he gets locked away in the bedroom.  We thought about rehoming him but can't responsibly say that that would be a safe option.  What happens if he runs away from his new home (which he likes to do) and encounters kids while hes on his field trip?  It just is not safe.

I'm so scared to go to the appointment today.  I don't want to do this at all.  Ugh.  Tom wants to burry him in the garden but we're not sure that we can dig down far enough.  Also now sure if I can handle driving the 30 minutes back from the vets with Bentley in the back seat.  We might have him creamated and spread his ashes in the garden (his favorite place to dig and lay down).  I'm getting tears all over the keyboard as I type this.  Man this sucks.

 

March Resolutions Update

1. Walk the dogs daily (at least on days when i am home before 6pm).
No update... still not happening regularly.  Will be down to one dog after this afternoon :(  Must make walking him a bigger priority.  (See next blog post for more info on the dogs)

2. Run two week nights and one long run on the weekend.
I haven't been tracking it in this fashion but since Tom for me a MiCoach for my birthday I have run 6 times in the past two weeks.  I have workouts already scheduled on my MiCoach calendar for now until June 10th when I finihs my first running program using it.  YAY.

3. Do a workout video on nights when Tom is on night work.
Have not been doing this... but basketball practice has been helping to give me some strength training mixed in with the running.  Also going to try 20 pushup and 20 sit ups 3 times a day starting when I go back to work on Tuesday.  When I first get to work, before picking the class up from recess and before driving home.  Takes 2 minutes to do this.  No excuses.  In fact changing this resolution....

3. Do a workout video on nights when Tom is on night work.
3. 20 pushups and 20 situps 3times a day when at work.


4. Cleanse facebook friends (sorry... but if i haven't talked to you since the one class we had together in high school... then we probably don't need to keep in touch)
Done!  Sort of.... Last night I was on facebook and some people showed up that I probably meant to get rid of.  When I was doing this over the weekend facebook show me an alphabetical list of my friends so I had to keep searching letter by letter and I think some people slipped through the cracks.

5. Print out pictures once a month and put into photo album. Having a digital camera has killed my photo albums.
Ummm... did not take any pictures in March.  What is wrong with me?  I love pictures!  Maybe I'll just keep my camera out and on the kitchen counter as a visual reminder.  Hmmmm.... 

I love Aldie's

I got all of these groceries for $40.

The first time Tom took me to Aldie I remember being terrified.  There are no shelves, stuff is just stacked on packing crates.  Nothing name brand exists. Worst of all, you can't use credit.  I was totally freatked out. 

Now that I am used to it though... I love how much money we save shopping there.  I would be in a commercial for them.  They're amazing.

Valentines Day

Tom and I joke all the time about how he never gets me flowers. The first flower I got from him was drawn with crayon on the table at Mother's in Fed Hill (I made him sign and date it and it is hanging on the fridge now). Out first Valentines Day together he got me one red rose. Since then I think I've gotten flowers once for a date night. Anyway.... Valentines Day I came down stairs to get ready for work at 5:30 am and there is a beautiful vase with flowers on teh counter. He had them hidden in the basement from the 13th and got up in the middle of the night to put them out in the kitchen.

It made me feel a little guilty as I was working on his hand made construction paper card at school later that morning....

Tom in action...

... removing stitches after a tragic run in our friend had with wine and tall shoes.

Resolution update

1. Walk the dogs daily (at least on days when i am home before 6pm). 
Hahahahahaha... I think we have walked the dogs maybe once a week.... ugh.  WILL GET BETTER ABOUT THIS.
2. Run two week nights and one long run on the weekend.
We did this two weeks ago.  Tom hurt his back last week.  I could run by myself... but it gets dark before I would finish a run so I don't like to.  Have been running at least 3 miles on the tred mill on Sat. mornings.

3. Do a workout video on nights when Tom is on night work.
Once.  All month.  Ugh.  Better next month?  See work out or blog post for more details.

4. Cleanse facebook friends (sorry... but if i haven't talked to you since the one class we had together in high school... then we probably don't need to keep in touch)
No progress... probably won't work on this until the summer when school and classes are over.

5. Print out pictures once a month and put into photo album. Having a digital camera has killed my photo albums. 
I only took 4 pictures in February!  Pathetic.  I do have a lot of photo album catching up to do.  Maybe spring break?  I have through summer 2011 in my photo album.  Need to finish 2011 and start 2012.  Must take more pictures for 2012 to be an interesting photo album.
Side note- had totally forgotten about this resolution before copy and pasting this list for this blog post.  I like it a lot.  Need to remember to do it in March!!!!

Work out or blog?

I'm finding it really difficult to work out on weeknights (also see resolution update blog post).  Take today for example... I got home around 5:15.  Let the dogs out, put dishes away.  Changed into sweats.  Updated credit card info on the easy pass account, paid a big chunk on the credit card (thank you federal tax refund!) and now I am blogging.  I totally get that I could go work out right now instead of doing this.  And I'm not trying to come up with excuses.... but I AM TIRED.  Working is exhausting.  I just don't feel like working out when I get home.

I even tried to motivate myself to get dressed and take a class at the gym.  There is a class at 7 pm.... but I am usually in bed by 8pm.  If I go take the class I won't be home until 8:30.  THen have to shower... it will be 9:30 or 10 before I get in bed.  ugh.

I really wish I could get up in the morning and work out... I am definitely a better morning person.  But my alarm already goes off at 5 am (and I get out of bed about 5:20... yes I know... 20 min right there I could be working out....)  In reality if I was going to work out in the morning I would have to be up and out of bed at 4:45.  10 min to change and wake up.  NOw I'm startin gmy workout at 4:55.  I could do a Jillian 20 min work out and be done at 5:15.  But seriously... who wants to be awake at 4:45 am?  Not this girl.

I am doing pretty good on teh weekends... I have been meeting up with a friend before my shift on Saturday mornings (oh yeah... I switched shifts at the gym... I now work on Sat morning from 7:45-1pm instead of Sunday from 1-6pm).  The shift change has been amazing not only because of the working out... but mentally it is really nice to be done with work on Saturday at 1pm.  I used to dred going to work on Sunday afternoon all weekend.  Now I don't have to worry about that!  This past Sunday I took a class at the gym and then went for an hour long walk around the harbour.

Antoher thought- I must find sneakers!  Tom and I looked at the mall on Saturday. We went into at least 6 shoe stores.  I wish I was kidding.  No one had the sneakers I want (the ones with the really flexible soles- I think they will be the perfect obstacle course shoes!) in my size for under 100 dollars.  Gonna check the outlets on our way to family game night in a few weeks.

Wow.  Clearly when I don't blog for a while my blog posts turn into one rambliung anicdote that covers lots of different topics.  Hope my line of thought is not too dilluted.....

I am open to thoughts and suggestions about working out!

Shoes, shoes, shoes

For Tom's birthday I wanted to get him the new Jordan's.  Since I know nothing about buying Jordan's, I went to their website and printed out a picture of the newest released shoe, assuming it was the new one that all the hype was over.  I wrapped it in a shoe box and figured once Tom opened it he could figure out where we could buy them.

As it turns out, it was a good thing I didn't try and buy the shoes on my own bc the picture I printed was not the right shoe.  In fact, the right shoe apparently is sold out everywhere and I wouldn't have been able to get it anyway.  Have no fear, Tom's been online looking at shoes ever since so I'm sure he'll find something that he likes.  

This whole present prompted Tom to show me all the Jordan's that exist in our house, but I have never seen because they live in their boxes and never see daylight.....

We had to take this picture twice... the first time the shoes were not in the correct order of release.... 

These have been worn once or twice

Same with these... 

These ones have been worn.  Last summer these were his casual sneakers.  We walked into footlocker one day and the guy working there was talking to Tom and was like "I haven't seen those shoes since 1992."

This pair is the really special ones (or so I was told).  They have never been worn and will never be worn.  What you can't see in this picture bc of the lighting is that on the bottom of the shoe are all of Michael Jordan's accomplishments written into the tread.  They can't be worn for fear of scuffing the words.

Date night

At family game night John and Alyssa told us that they were going to Olive Garden the following weekend for a date night.  In my drunken-ness I apparently invited Tom and I on their date.  I was unaware of this until a few days later when Alyssa texted me to ask what the plan was for Saturday....

We ended up meeting them on their new boat (which is amazing) and enjoying a bottle of champagne to celebrate their new purchase.

After drinks on the boat, we went to Olive Garden for dinner.  Yummm.  The service in the bar while waiting for a table was absolutely horrible, but everything else about the evening was wonderful :)

100th day of school

Thursday was the 100th day of school!  I'm still not quite sure why the 100th day of school is such a huge celebration.. but in Kindergarten its a pretty big deal.  We had a rotation in the morning where the kids went to other classrooms to do 100 th day activities:

Froot loop necklace with 100 froot loops.

Hat (made out of a sentence strip) with 100 tally marks on it and a big colorful 100.

Hide the number 100 in a detailed picture.

Prior the the 100th day we decided to make t shirts for all the kids.  The idea was to have each kid bring in a  shirt and paint 10 hand prints on the shirt to make 100 fingers.  Luckily I have some really great parents so we had enough t shirts donated for the whole class.  I underestimated how expensive fabric paint is though.  For 7 bucks a friend at work got me a set with 3 colors of puffy fabric paint.  Luckily she had started her shirts on Monday and told me that she only for through 6 shirts with the paint she had. I was planning on doing my shirts on Tuesday so I had time to change plans.  We ended up painting the number 100 with the paint and having the kids smudge the paint with their fingers to make it wider.  Then we signed the back of the shirts with sharpies.  They turned out cute but I think the hand prints were cuter.... maybe next year.

Chocolate Waffles

So for Tom's birthday we decided to use an Outback gift card we got for Christmas from his captain and go out to dinner.  Thursday after work Tom drove down to my school for basketball practice (more on that in another post).  After practice we changed and headed to dinner.

First round of drinks at the bar while we were waiting for a table... the girl was very sweet and said the first round was on the house (thanks to Tom's BCFD sweatshirt).  Dinner was delicious (cobb salad with grilled chicken for me, prime rib for Tom, and a bloomin onion to share).

The real treat for the evening though was dessert.... chocolate waffles with oreo cookie crumbs and vanilla ice cream.

I only finished one quarter of the waffle bc I was so full already.  I asked for a box for the rest of the waffle and the waiter tells me he doesn't think it will reheat that well.... I told him I would find a way to make it work.... and I did.  The next morning was chocolate waffles for breakfast.  Yummmmmm!

Resolutions... better late than never

A friend of mine recently posted a resolutions update on her blog and it got me thinking that maybe if I put some resolutions in writing I might actually try harder to stick to them....

1. Walk the dogs daily (at least on days when i am home before 6pm).  It's not fair to them that we have a fenced in back yard bc it makes us be lazzzyyyy dog owners.

2. Run two week nights and one long run on the weekend.

3. Do a workout video on nights when Tom is on night work.

4. Cleanse facebook friends (sorry... but if i haven't talked to you since the one class we had together in high school... then we probably don't need to keep in touch)

5. Print out pictures once a month and put into photo album.  Having a digital camera has killed my photo albums.  I'm lucky if I print out my pics once a year (which leads to a walmart online photo order of like 300 pics at a time)

That's all I've got for now.... maybe more to come later.

Family Game Night

Family game night with the Bedell's started about a year ago.  We realized it was crazy that we all lived within two hours of each other and still only got together for holidays.  Monthly family game night was born.  We rotate houses each month and the game is up to the host house to come up with.  Some past games:
Cranium, charades, poker, apples to apples, halloween mummy wrap.

This month... Aunt Nancy and Mark got serious.  Game night is now themed.  The bar has been raised just a little bit higher....

We got to their house and the sign on the front door reads:

Welcome to M & N Diner

Early Bird Specials 5pm-7pm

The evenign was diner themed.  Dinner was meatloaf, boiled potatoes, peas.  We even ate off "chinette" plates (heavy duty paper plates).  The game for the night....

BINGO!  Not just any bingo, Aunt Nancy and Mark created body part bingo boards online.  Best of 7 games.  Prizes for top 4 players.  I managed to win one game  but was not in the top 4.  Tom won a candle for us to take home though!

I also decided that drinking wine from a chamapgne flue makes everything seem fancier!



Dinner for One

When Tom's at work it seems silly to cook for one.  I don't really enjoy spending time in the kitchen so I am always trying to think of quick and easy dinner meals. 

Buffalo chicken dip is my favorite go to.  Cream cheese, chicken, hot sauce, ranch dressing,.  Yummm.  It has protein and it takes less then 10 minutes to make.... perfect.

That was last Wednesday.  On Thursday I went back to my elementary school days for this favorite meal....

Pizza bagels!!!!!

yummmmmm.

Ellicot City

After not seeing Ashley in waaaay too long we finally met up in Ellicot City for a lunch date!  The day started at Starbucks (which makes perfect sense if you know either of us).  Then we explored downtown Ellicot City and had lunch :)  Happy to ahve found a fun halfway point for us to meet in the future!

Sewing

And I thought I would never need to know how to sew.... I did a pretty good job too.  The shirt and button have successfully survived going through the wash once already!

Christmas Condensed

It took me until Martin Luther King Day to get tired of looking at Christmas decorations... I had a 7 page paper to write, and a friend I was meeting for lunch but I still got a a decorations rampage at 7:30 in the morning.  I gathered all the decorations and put them on the dining room table.  Then I realized how dusty my house was and had to spend some time cleaning.  FINALLY I got around to the paper that needed to be written... after all that... still made it to lunch on time!

I'm a little embarassed to say that the decorations stayed like this for another week until I finally boxed them up and brought them to the basement....

Exercise mania!

Ugh... on my drive home I was talking to Erin and was trying to think of reasons not to work out. But it was nice out. And there was almost no traffic. I got home around 5. After being lazy and cuddling on the couch we finally got up to take the dogs for a walk.

When we got back we did a work out for time... 5 rounds of the following:

5 pull ups (with a chair for me)
10 push ups (I did all 5 rounds with real push ups not girl ones)
30 crunches
40 bicycles
20 squats

I finished all 5 rounds in 11 minutes! (About 2 minutes before Tom!- although he was doing 10 pull ups and 20 push ups)

Hooray! He'll be at work tomorrow... hopefully I can motivate myself to work out on my own....

But I DON'T WANT TO!

So Tuesday I was on my way home from work... Tom was on night shift.  I had already started thinking of reasons why I could not work out before I even got back to Baltimore.  I should walk the dogs instead, its too cold, its too dark.... I DON'T WANT TO.  In reality, there was no reason not to work out.  Traffic was light and I was going to be at home around 5:15pm.  I considered going for a run but it was already dark and I didn't really want to run alone.

By the time I got home, I had convinced myself that I had to work out (thank goodness).  i did level 2 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred.

For those of you, like me, who have this DVD but have never made it past level 1.... Level 2 is so much harder!  I really enjoyed the workout.  And its only 20 minutes so it was pretty easy to talk myself into doing it. 

After a quick shower, I made chicken quesadilla's for dinner.  I measured out the salsa and chips I had with it so that I didn't go overboard.  Not a terribly healthy meal, but quick and easy!

Snow!

Not the sight you want when leaving a staff meeting on a Monday and are facing an hour drive home.  Thank goodness 95 North wasn't that bad!

Oh man...

Oh NO!  

Not what you want to see when you get in the car to go to work and you're battling a hangover.  Stupid tires.  Looks like I will be buying my very own mini air compressor (see previous post about the cool new gadget).

Out on the town

So I have a wonderful husband.  My favorite thing to do is sit at home with him.  When I do go out, its usually with him.  If I do go out for a girls night, I usually try to schedule it on a night when he works.  I figure, he's already gone two nights a week for work, so when he is home... I want to be home with him.

That being said... last night a friend of mine wanted some company to a friend's going away party.  I asked Tom if he minded and he was glad to get rid of me for the evening (football was on).  So last night I went out for the first time in a long time solo.  Christine picked me up at 9:30 (usually I am in bed by then...).  We headed to the going away party and then to stalking horse in Fed Hill.  It was a great night!  (Although this morning was a little rough....).

I work out so that I can eat...

On Friday we actually made it out for a run.  About 3 miles (a little break for a block or two of walking- Tom's request... not mine).  It felt great.  Plus it was about 50 degrees out so we didn't have to be all bundled up.  After the run, I did crunches while Tom called in our Chinese food order.  Yummmm.  I think the only reason I work out is so that I don't have to feel bad about consuming foods that might not be the best for me (but taste delicious).

Same thing happened on Saturday.... we headed to the gym at 7:30 am (after taking Tom's car to get his emissions tested... it passed... THANK GOODNESS!).  We ran for a little bit, about two miles.  Today's run was much faster.  Tom and I were competing for speed.  I topped out at 8 MPH for a half mile... Tom made it up to 8.5 MPH.  After the run we went to starbucks for breakfast.  Then I worked at the front desk from 9-1pm and Tom took a group fitness class at 10am.

At 1pm Hannah, Tom and I all headed to Mick O'Sheas for BRUNCH (which is in my opinion... the best meal ever).  I went with the Powerhouse Turkey sandwich and mimosas!

Hannah went with the mimosas as well!

Another friend showed up and the four of us had a blast.  I was the driver so I had a little less fun then the others... but a great way to spend the afternoon.  After checking out all their specials Hannah and I have plans to go back on Wednesday for 20 pizza and pitcher of beer.  

Running... or rather walking.

Well..... we didn't quiet make it on a run today. The dogs were bonkers when I got home from work so we opted for a 3 mile walk with the dogs instead of a run. MUST. RUN. TOMORROW.

Cool new gadget

My front drivers side tire has the unfortunate habit of being low every so often.  Usually in the winter.  Winter is not exactly the season when I want to be searching for an air machine in our neighborhood at 6 am on my way to school.

This morning when I got in the car (after very little sleep... see the previous blog post) my low tire pressure light was on.  If I was a normal person and worked somewhat close to home this wouldn't be a huge deal... but my commute is about an hour each way.  I checked my purse and only found two quarters.  That meant driving out of my way to get to the Hess gas station with free air.  When I got there the machine was broken.  Of course.  I drove all the way to work with the light on.

I was hitting up one of my teammates for quarters at the end of the day.  After giving me a dollar she tells me she has a portable air compressor thing in her car that plugs into the cars cigarette lighter and asked if I want to use it.  Ummm.... YES!

I need to invest in one of these as soon as possible!  

Nothing good happens after 1 am....

I haven't spent much time reading anything other than textbooks since starting a graduate program last year.  Part of this is because I love to read and can get a little obsessed when I am reading a good book.  In a Yankee swap gift exchange over Christmas break, I got a Barnes and noble gift card. I used it to buy The Help.

I watched the movie while we were in NY and LOVED the movie.  I will probably end up buying it and watching it 10 more times.  So going into reading the book my expectations were high.  I have to say, after the first few chapters I was still thinking that the movie might be better.  Then it got good.  I mean real good.

Last night Tom was on night shift and I spent my evening on the couch with a glass of wine and a delicious chocolate covered pretzel and my book.

 (side note: I love that Google chrome is automatically orienting my pictures the correct way as I upload them instead of keeping them how the original file is... thank you Google!)

Around 10 pm I convinced myself to go up to bed.  But I kept reading. 

At about 10:30 I talked to Tom and decided to finish my chapter before bed.

At 11:30  pm I actually put the book down and turned the lamp off.

At 11:40 pm, I was still awake and figured I might as well keep reading.

Around 12:40 am I had gotten through the next Miss Skeeter section (her parts are my favorite... I'm loving the romance between her and Stuart) and decided enough was enough.  I closed the book with only a few chapters to go and decided I had to sleep.

At 1 am I was still awake but did not start reading again.  Sometime after that I fell asleep.

At 5 am my alarm went off for my first day back to school in over a week.... what was I thinking?

Getting my butt in gear

After registering for a bunch of mud runs a month or two ago Tom and I decided to hit the cold weather running pretty hard.... at least that's what we decided.  In reality I think we have been running  a grand total of three times since then... but hey its better than nothing.

One of the mud runs, the Spartan Race, posts a workout of the day and sends you an email at 10 pm each evening with the following days workout.  Most of the time I laugh as I read the ridiculously hard workout while I lay in bed.  However, Friday nights email (with Saturday's workout) actually sounded doable so I hit the gym Saturday morning to give it a try:

12 burpees
400 meter run
11 burpees
400 meter urn
10 burpees
400 meter run

well you get the idea... this nonsense kept up until you got down to 0 burpees.

I did it!  And this spurred me to get back on the workout bandwagon.  Sadly I was feeling lazy and unmotivated on Sunday and Monday... but this evening I was feeling like I needed to do something.  Here is today's Work out of the day.  I modified it to look like this (because lets face it... a 5 minute plank was not happening... and if it was... it certainly was not happening 3 times):

10 push ups
2 min plank
50 crunches

10 push ups
2 min plank
50 bicycles

10 push ups
2 min plank
50 leg lifts

All of this was accomplished while watching one episode of How I Met Your Mother on netflix.  Pretty successful evening.  Tomorrow I'm headed to my brothers house to baby sitt my niece, but I hope to go for a 3-4mile run on Thursday.  We'll see....

Christmas 2011

Christmas this year was on the worst possible day if you are a teacher... Sunday. That means we had to work allllll week leading up to Christmas. I'm talking Monday-Friday. Yuck. Luckily my team does a "winter rotation" on the day before break... so our classes rotate through other classrooms to do winter themed activities.

The break was much needed however. We left our house on Saturday, Christmas Eve, at 4 pm (after Tom got out of work a little late) and drove the 2 hours ish to go see my family. Christmas with the Bedell's was a blast (from what I remember at least..... ). On Christmas morning we woke up and had a delicious breakfast of cinnamon buns, then headed off to NY. I highly reccomend traveling on Christmas Day. Traffic was a breeze. We got to NY and hung out with the family for the rest of the day. The rest of the time in NY was relaxing. We didn't get too see all of our friends :( but we did get to spend a lot of time hanging out with Tom's parents and siblings :)

We left NY on Thursday and headed back to my parents... Oh yeah, Bentley had been staying with them while we were in NY because we recently discovered that he is not entirely kid friendly... and if you know Tom's family, being non kid friendly is not an option! (So far there are 16 grand kids).

Upon our arrival at my parents we had a gingerbread house making contest with my brothers, sister in law, and neice and nephew.

Yes thats right... our house has a yard with pixie stick now and a cobblestone front walk.  We even have a mailbox and a snowman.

My husband ingeniously made a carrot nose for the snowman out of an orange jelly bean!

Me, Tom and John

And then one without John.... 

Grandpa reading Frosty the Snowman to Tick Tac

Tom being gross.

The evening was ended with a game of charades (which my team won... go Alyssa, John and Dad!)

We got back to Baltimore on Friday and enjoyed a nice long nap that afternoon.  Saturday Tom and I were both back to work.