Just stopping by...

You would think that being away from blogging for a few months would give me a lot of material. And you would be right, except that it would take me a few months to recount everything that has gone on around here! Suffice it to say, I think blogging for me was something that I used more as a procrastination tool than anything else. Now that school is finished and I actually have a life, I'm out living it and don't have a lot of time to blog about it. Either way, I'm not giving up the blog, but entries will continue to be sporadic, I'm sure.

A quick update on just the last two weeks:

- We spent over $700 at the vet for a biopsy on a gigantic mole that sprouted up on Harley's leg, vaccinations for both dogs, some weird procedure on Harley's eyes that ended up clearing his sinuses so he doesn't snore anymore (Honestly? This alone was worth the money!), and two different kinds of eyedrops for the H Bear. No word yet on the biopsy. Please cross your fingers it's benign.

- Rusty's car had to go into the shop the same day as the vet. We're not even going to discuss how much that cost.

- I taught my very first class at work. I had been freaking out over it for weeks for no reason at all. My course evaluations came back from my "students" and I got nothing but positive feedback. Woot! Go me ;)

- Kimmie came to visit!! I think she took exception to the fact that it snowed at home so early this year. Whatever the reason, I'm so glad she came. We had a ton of fun, without stopping for a second. After a visit to Santana Row for shopping, eating and a mani/pedi for each of us, my kickball championships, two parties, a new drinking game based on Gordon Ramsey and how often he cusses, and meals at the best Mexican and brunch places in San Jose - I sent my oldest friend home a happy girl... if a bit sad to leave us (and vice versa!). Luckily she'll be back in the spring for a trip to Napa!

- Brodie broke a window on Monday. The mailman had the nerve to actually deliver our mail. Sheesh, what was he thinking? Don't worry, Brodie is fine, not a scratch on him. We have a cardboard box in the window now (which is not ghetto at all) and when all is said and done, it will cost us almost $1k. God, grant me the serenity to not kick this dog's ass...*

- I spent most of the morning laying in the sun, listening to my iPod. Did I mention it's over 80 degrees here? It's the middle of November!

I'm spending this weekend relaxing, running some errands and catching up on sleep. It is so nice to have a break! Hope you all are enjoying your weekend!

*Please don't worry, no dogs were harmed in the destruction of our house. :)

Just because

There is one thing that sets Brodie and Harley apart (aside from their vast difference in size) and that is their affection, or lack thereof, for the sun. Brodie will find the smallest sliver of sunlight to bask under, whereas Harley will do anything to stay in the shade. So it came as no surprise when we noticed that Harley chose to lay in the dirt with the flowers on Friday to stay cool.


A Place in the Shade from meghan johnson on Vimeo.

Forgive me

... for being so incredibly boring lately, but I just can't seem to muster up anything interesting to write about! I don't have a house to renovate or dedicate an entire post to; I'm not really into partying anymore; I'm not a particularly good photographer, cook, baker, etc. so there's not a whole lot there.... (translation: I'm a horrible housewife. Hence, the reason I will always work.) ... blah blah blah. What I do have is a job I love, a husband I love (and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual ;)) and two dogs who keep me on my toes (as you can see here and here).

I'm incredibly grateful for all I do have, but I'll admit I have moments of jealousy over the things/skills I don't have. I'm always on the hunt for a new hobby that I might be good at, better than average even, but so far I haven't found anything aside from work and grad school. Neither live up to the definition of "fun" but I am pretty good at both and they give me a solid feeling of accomplishment.

So. Now that I am entering into my very last class to earn my graduate degree, I've been thinking a lot about how I want to spend my new found free time come September. I've been throwing around a few ideas:

• Volunteer! Ideally, I would be able to do this at one of the local SPCA/Humane Society sites. If my career can't involve animals, I might as well dedicate some extra time to them!


• Get a second job. Okay, so admittedly, this is not my favorite option because I am inherently lazy and my favorite thing to do after work Monday through Friday is walk in the door, take off my heels and work clothes and settle into my slippers and comfy fat pants. This generally does not happen when one has a second job. However, the Husband and I have upped our deadline to buy a house, so there is no time like the present to start sacrificing some free time to make a little extra cash. (Mmmmmm.... discount at Banana Republic..... drool.....)


• Go to the gym. Hahahahaha! I know. Who am I kidding? I can't even believe I wrote that!


• Join a book club! Take a knitting class or cooking class! Visit my grandma so she can teach me how to sew! She's just up in San Francisco, so its not that far and I really need to be spending more time with her. So...


• Let's just go ahead and make that one a definite: Visit Grandma WAY more often!

There are all sorts of things that I could do in my spare time (once I have it). I'm going to weigh the pros and cons of the volunteer vs. second job thing, which is going to be hard because both have 'pros' that I am very passionate about. Its just that one only benefits my heart and my karma, while the other puts good ol' dinero in my pocket. Or our savings account to be more exact. So we can all look forward to the coming months as I'll actually have a life - I hope - from which I will draw upon in an attempt to make this blog thingy ever so slightly more interesting. :)

Okay, so this photo has absolutely nothing to do with my post, but I've been missing having a tiny puppy around. So in my perusal of Harley's puppy pictures, I found this pic that I had to share. Harley at about 15 weeks old greeting our niece (7 months old). She slept right through this...

Oy vey...

You all may recall my post about a month ago about the "highlighter incident." Since then, Harley had been spending his days in the crate to protect our belongings (and his health since that dog will clearly eat anything). Since we have company coming this weekend who we need to make room for and the house is all clean, we decided to put away the crate and let Harley have another chance. Since he has a tendency to go for office supplies (paper and highlighters), we figured we were good to go.

Well, apparently not. This is what we saw when we walked in the door at lunch today:
In case you can't tell what that pile o' fun is...

Yes. Feathers. Lots and lots and lots of feathers. This was the victim (among yet another pile of feathers in the dining room):

*Sigh* I just don't know what to do with him. On the one hand this was absolutely hilarious. We actually had to RAKE the feathers into a manageable pile and then run the vacuum about a thousand times to pick it all up. And as I sit here typing this, I can still see feathers floating around! Will they ever be all gone?? But on the other hand, he keeps finding things to chew up that we never thought he'd attack. And this pillow was almost $40! (Please don't judge me for spending that much on a stupid pillow.) Who knows what will be next!

Anyway, there was definite comic relief when, while we ate our lunch, we watched Brodie walk away with a single feather stuck to his ass. That. Was. AWESOME! I just wish I had gotten a picture of that. But just to give you an idea of how bad Harley is at tricking us into thinking he had nothing to do with the destruction du jour, look close at this picture and you'll see a big white feather on Harley's nose and feathers sticking out of his mouth. This is exactly how we found him when we got home. Gee, I wonder who the culprit was?

Hace mucho calor...

Summer decided to make a grand (and early) entrance this year. All weekend its been at least 85 degrees. Great for me! Not so much for Rusty or the dogs. Rusty's been coaching all weekend and the dogs (especially Harley) sometimes have a hard time cooling off in the heat. Today was the perfect day for a little something extra...

I couldn't get the video to show, so click here:
Bobbing for Ice Cubes on Vimeo.

Action Shots

Now that it stays light out a little bit later, we have more time to get outside and throw the frisbee around with the dogs. Please forgive me, they are kind of blurry, but the dogs move a lot faster than I can click the button on the camera!

Look how high Brodie can jump!
Harley, on the other hand, doesn't bother to leave the ground to catch it. Or it could be the extra 20 lbs he's carrying around. ;)

I love how funny Brodie looks in this one... It makes me chuckle.

That's all for now. I hope you didn't mind the dog-centric post. In case you hadn't noticed, I am slightly obsessed with my pups. :)

I want to squish you and put you in my pocket.

There is entirely too much cuteness in our living room right now...

Harley Bear

I'm all about the pictures these days. :) I've been starting out slow, trying my hand at Picasa first before I start playing around with Photoshop. So what are your thoughts on this one? I messed with it a little but I'm not sure it looks as good as I think it does.

Either way, I love how peaceful he looks with the water from the hose in the background - something that would normally have him and his brother frantic with excitement.

A Portrait of Silence

I'm just really proud of this picture. You have no idea what it takes to get them to be quiet and sit still like that!

Aren't my boys handsome? :)

Sixth Sense

Proof that dogs are indeed smarter than we are.

From now on I promise to investigate when Brodie is staring intently at the wall for 30 minutes at a time. Who knows what might be in there!

Furbabies

Meg's scare with Gordon today really got me thinking about my dogs and how even with all the stupid stuff they pull we still love them to pieces. Both of our dogs have had weird things happen to them where they very easily might not have lived to chew up another shoe.

Brodie walked through the railing and off our second floor balcony when he was only about a year old. Then a year or so later was hit by a car in front of our house. Both times he walked away with pretty minor injuries if anything.

When Harley was about 13 weeks old (3 weeks after Rusty gave him to me) he got really sick to the point where he peed the bed multiple times in one night, wouldn't drink or eat and was completely unresponsive. We rushed him to the emergency animal hospital and a few hours later he was back to his old self. Albeit with a sack of fluid sloshing around on his back, but still back to being a puppy.

Last week I posted about how Harley chewed up that green highlighter. It was pretty funny at the time, but the next morning, we woke up to find that he had actually eaten quite a bit of the plastic pieces from the marker. He had thrown it up in the middle of the night, but we can't help but wonder what might happen if he does it again. Will we be so lucky that it won't damage any internal organs? Our family dog, Jaxx, ate something when he was about 4 years old and ended up needing a really expensive surgery that resulted in him losing about 18 inches of intestine. We were all grateful he made it through to live another 5 awesome years.

I guess where I'm going with this, is why do we do this to ourselves? I'm an enormous animal-lover, so its no question why I love having dogs. But we all know that they eat things that aren't supposed to go into their bodies and do stupid things that have the potential to make them sick or even worse. We know that with having pets there is an inherent risk that something could go wrong at any moment through no fault of our own. Yet, we still bring these animals into our lives and then blame ourselves when things do go wrong.

I shouldn't have left the door open.

I should have cleaned up the house better so there would be nothing to chew up.

I should have paid more attention.

Shoulda coulda woulda. There's really no point. These animals are in our lives to make them better for the time they're around. We all know that dogs don't live as long as we do, so we adopt these little furballs knowing they're only going to cause us heartache in the end. But it is so worth it when you get moments like these...

Hang in there, Gordon! We're all pulling for you!

Blah

Today is one of those days when I really would have rather stayed in bed under the covers than get up and deal with life. And I think everyone around me would agree. Not that there is anything in particular that's wrong, its just... one of those days I guess.

Part of it is that I'm insanely busy and stressed out. I have a full-time job (that I love) and I'm working on getting my masters degree. I've been in school for the past 2+ years, but I still haven't gotten used to the fact that I have ZERO free time to do whatever I want. And if I do take some time out just for me? I end up feeling guilty about not reading the latest chapter of Strategic Human Resources or whatever crap I'm supposed to be learning about. All of this just makes me a cranky bitch that no one wants to deal with. I can't imagine why...

Other things about today that suck? In my grueling 5 minute commute to work this morning, I was unnecessarily cut off at least 3 times. Annoying? Yes. But bearable if I'm at least warned its coming. So will someone please explain to me why the hell people don't use their effing blinkers???? It is not difficult to use. In fact, your pinky can do all the work! Its also a safety tool since it keeps you safe from me trying to murder you when you don't use it!

AND, I'm a terrible wife. Rusty went above and beyond to help me put together a tournament bracket for a bocce ball tournament my company has every year. Instead of graciously saying thank you, I get all pissy because I will actually have to add. Numbers. In my head. I know, right? Someone call an ambulance, I'm about to have an aneurysm! So, I'm sorry sweety. I'm awful. I don't know how you haven't strangled me yet. It must be love!

And last but certainly not least: Harley. I swear this dog will be lucky if he sees is 3rd birthday. Yesterday we came home at lunch to see that he had chewed up some junk mail and a credit card that I had finally paid off and was ready to cancel. The afternoon went by without a hitch and he got plenty of praise for being such a good boy. Today? Lets just say that I no longer have a green highlighter with which to do my homework. How did I know it was Harley, you ask? See for yourselves:

Caught green-handed...

He looks sorry....

... but I'm not taking any chances.

An Open Letter to Harley

Harley, you know I love you. I would do anything for you. And for the most part you are the best doggy ever (after your brother of course).

With one, very stinky, exception.

Your ass. Seriously, I've been sitting here writing a paper for class and within the last hour, you have farted.... wait for it..... 10 times. Yes, you read that correctly. Ten. Diez. Dix. Zehn. I'm sorry, but in my book that is WAY too much. I mean, sure its funny sometimes. Like last night when Rusty told you to be quiet and stop whining. Your natural response?

"Toooooooooooooooooot!"

Who can stay mad at a puppy who communicates with you via his butthole? I know its not your food, so I can only guess that you're doing this to essentially turn our living room into a veritable gas chamber, forcing me to go outside and play with you. Well, buddy, I've gotta hand it to you, that's a great plan.

Now that I know what you want, will you please please PLEASE stop with the farting??

Love,
Your Momma

PS. Feel free to keep farting in your dad's face. Now that? That's pure comedy.