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!