Sick Puppy

Poor Scruff-dog has not had a good couple weeks. I took him to the vet for his annual checkup and shots two weeks ago and turned out he had a nasty ear infection. He also has allergies which mostly manifest in adorable doggy-sneezes but had progressed to his eyes. So our tough guy had to have drops in his eyes and ear every day, which he took like a champ.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, he must have caught some sort of 24 hour doggie stomach flu... if such a thing exists? All I know is one day as I'm walking out the door he started making that horrible heaving sound and before I can usher him off the carpet... blech. And again... and again... Then he didn't want to eat or drink anything, and so I fed him what I feed myself when I'm sick: saltine crackers and Gatorade. Well, actually it was Vitamin Water but you get the idea. That only lasted about a day and a half, thank goodness for everyone and especially for my carpet.

Now he has this kind of hacking cough that he's doing, the kind that wakes me up at night and, just in case, makes me get out of bed and go check on him. Poor little pup.

It's hard taking care of someone (or in this case somedog) who is sick, and I don't think it is especially my strong suit. Visiting sick people is easy for me - I'm good at cheering and no-nonsense advising and gift-bearing. But really caring for the sick requires lots of patience and mercy, and if I'm being honesty those are two big weaknesses for me! Still, I know God wants to develop those things in me, and I think this past week He might have used dog barf to inch me a little closer.

Opportunities for lessons learned aside, I really hope Scruffy is better soon and back to his normal self. Or rather, as normal as a mostly-super-chill, other-dog-hating, weird-phobia-having, backwards-walking puppy can be.

100th Post! 100 Things I Like...

This is my 100th post on this blog! Little did I know all those years ago that I would be having this much fun sharing all my random thoughts with the world... or at least with my mom and the five other people who regularly read this blog.

I decided I would do a post about 100 random things I like... in no order, no rhyme or reason... These are not my top 100 things, or an exhaustive list of things I like. I just typed out everything as it came to me, and sometimes saying one thing I liked made me think of something else. Also I did some linking in case you like these things too.

Now on to the list!

1. Sleeping with lots of pillows
2. Baby name books
3. Libraries
4. Popcorn at the movie theater
5. Writing blogs
6. Shel Silverstein
7. Swimming
8. Artisan & Craft fairs
9. Leggings
10. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese
11. Red airheads
12. Getting stupid-excited about the Twilight movie
13. Kristin Wiig on SNL
14. Driving
15. Chubby cheeks on babies
16. Scalding-hot showers
17. Really bright red fall trees
18. Taking pictures
19. Target
20. Shredding papers
21. Guinea pigs
22. The music of Leeland, especially "Sound of Melodies"
23. Watching figure skating
24. My graphic designers I work with
25. Cookies & Cream icecream from Braum's
26. Snow
27. The really snarky writing on Gossip Girl
28. Exclamation points
29. Writing and receiving real letters
30. When Heather calls at 9 pm and asks if I want to go to Sonic
31. The movie "Can't Hardly Wait"
32. Estee Lauder's Beautiful Sheer & Ralph Lauren Romance perfumes
33. Garth Brooks
34. Hugging my dad after I haven't seen him in a long time
35. Acoustic guitar driven music
36. Celebrity gossip
37. Scruffy and how cute he is
38. The St. Louis Zoo
39. LOST
40. Daydreaming of working for a really cool company like Google or Pixar
41. T-shirts with pockets
42. Fresh flowers
43. Calvin & Hobbes
44. Knowing all the words to Kanye West's "Golddigger"
45. Re-reading books I love
46. The words to hymns
47. Michaelangelo's Pieta
48. Holidays
49. Having parties at my house
50. 1 John 3:1
51. Horses
52. Going to art museums and remembering all the art history I learned
53. Apples with peanut butter
54. My momma
55. Traveling to new places
56. Being barefoot
57. Getting a haircut
58. Fuji Apple Chicken Salad from Panera
59. Baz Luhrmann movies
60. The city of Chicago
61. Cello
62. Being goofy with Ben
63. Scrapbooking
64. Shopping for scrapbooking stuff
65. Potatoes
66. Children's books
67. Going to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game in Busch Stadium
68. Headbands
69. Cute flat shoes
70. Quoting shows and movies I love
71. Steve Carell
72. Purple irises
73. My red purse
74. When kids say funny things
75. French fries from Kriegers with extra seasoning
76. Mountains
77. Doing laundry
78. Being "outdoorsy" through kayaking
79. When people have a funny laugh
80. Office supplies
81. My friend Rob & his family
82. Jason Mraz
83. Watching college football
84. Finding people on Facebook and looking at their pictures
85. When Jesus heals the little girl in Mark 5
86. The smell of outside in the spring
87. Milk
88. When my whole family is together at Christmas
89. Wearing jeans
90. Nicknames
91. Reading in the bathroom
92. Chips and cheese dip
93. Falling asleep to rain and thunder
94. Mark Rothko's color field paintings
95. Looking at beautiful wedding pictures
96. The X-Files
97. Getting a pedicure
98. Needtobreathe
99. Natural lighting
100. Taking naps

Happy Things From Today

1. Having Scruffy as my buddy at the house and bed warmer-upper since Ben is gone
2. Lots of pretty sunshine (even though it was kinda chilly outside)
3. Wearing my new yellow shirt - and the color yellow in general
4. Listening to Sleeping at Last even though I couldn't go to their concert like I wanted
5. Dearest friends coming over and watching some classic Office episodes
6. Ben coming home Thursday night instead of Friday

In Need of a Good Pruning

I know that title sounds kinda kinky, but hear me out...

Today I pruned back two bushes in our backyard. These are butterfly bushes, and we just recently discovered that at the beginning of every spring we're supposed to cut them back almost to the ground. We had never done that before, just assumed that they were supposed to be sort of wildly unkempt and overgrown. But no, that is not the case. So today I went after them, with a giant pair of pruning-gardening-thingies... did I mention our complete and utter lack of gardening knowledge?

I stood outside surveying the task at hand and wondering where to begin. I could hardly even get close to where I needed to cut because of the explosion of branches. Pushing a few aside, I maneuvered the cutters around a branch probably an inch thick, and laid into it, squeezing with all my might until with a satisfying SNAP the branch broke. So I did it again. And again. It felt... good! Good to hack away all the excess, even though if plants had feelings I'm sure it would've hurt like hell. And it got me thinking, "Man, I totally need to be pruned by God." Cutting away all this garbage that I think is pretty when in reality all it is doing is keeping me from growing properly. Being pared down, even though it hurts and it would be easier just to keep expanding out-of-control. Not leaving one single branch untrimmed out of wishful thinking or selfishness, but surrendering every piece to be stripped of the unnecessary. Left exposed so that the rain and sun can reach the roots and make me strong and so that none of the old dead crap can get in the way of new growth.

So I kept cutting and cutting and thinking about this, and when I was done I had two huge piles of branches, and two ugly little stumps of bushes, and two really sore armpits (seriously, what muscles does pruning use, because I don't think I'd ever used them before). I hope I did the right thing and that from the two stumps will spring up new green stalks and that mid summer they'll be in full and fragrant lilac bloom. And I'm praying that I have the good sense to let God prune me, too.

PS. On an unrelated note, Scruffy just came and stuck his nose under my arm as I typed, which is dog for, "Don't forget to post about my new haircut please." He does look pretty keee-yoot! Here he is modeling the new hyena-style do. I swear, if I take half as many pictures of my future children as I do my dog, we'll be set.

A Late St. Patty's Day Treat

One headband with sparkly clovers on springs...

+ One reluctant subject...

+One persistent photographer...

+One near paw-punch to the face...

= Scruffy finally succumbs to the St. Patrick's Day Festivities

Scruffy

In case you haven't been properly introduced, this is my dog, Scruffy:

I know I might be biased, but he is probably one of the best dogs ever in the history of dogs. I took this picture of him at the park a few weeks ago and every time I look at it it makes me smile. Scruffy is hilarious, loyal, quiet, pouncy, cuddly, relaxed, happy. His eyes are the color of caramel, his fur is fluffy and curly, and he has this extra skin around his neck - we call it, appropriately, his "scruff." We think he's about 5 and a half or 6 years old.


He is a mutt in the truest sense of the word... some poodle, perhaps black lab, some kind of terrier, etc. We don't know where he came from, or what his doggy life was like before we picked him up from the Nashville Humane Society. I sometimes think of how adorable he must have been as a little fluffy puppy, and feel sad that I missed that part of his life. I hope that he was loved and happy but the truth of it is probably that he was homeless or abandoned.


While in a sense I am grateful that Scruffy's doggy parents weren't fixed (because otherwise he wouldn't exist), the truth is that there is an extreme dog and cat overpopulation in this country because people do not get their pets spayed and neutered. I didn't know this until doing some research a few weeks ago, but 3-4 MILLION cats and dogs are euthanized in shelters every year because there are simply too many of them. According to the organization SPAY-USA (http://www.spayusa.org/) there are 15 dogs to every one person in America... obviously we're talking about a seriously unfavorable ratio. So please, please, please take your cats and dogs to be fixed. You can find out lots more about why and how through the Humane Society:

http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_care/why_you_should_spay_or_neuter_your_pet.html


Well, I really just intended to write a post about how awesome the Scruff-ster is, but I guess this was a good tangent to get on!

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig

Tomorrow Ben and I are headed home to St. Louis... yaaaaaaaaay! I am ecstatic about this, as I have not seen my family in many months. The last time I was in St. Louis was in September with Heather, and neither my parents nor Ben's were in town!

Here are a few things I am looking forward to doing...

• Hanging out with Cara & talking about wedding stuff! Maybe while cross-stitching and watching X-Files, who knows?
• Ben gets to see Cody and Rob and they can have guitar talk and possible guitar shopping (this is their favorite thing to do together... seriously, they went guitar shopping the morning of our wedding).
• Seeing my grandpa
• Loving on my sister, who after the holidays is heading to Italy for a semester. Jealous!
• Houses full of doggies... Scruffy is coming home with us to stay at Ben's parents' house in the basement, to sniff noses through the gate at Monk and Zoe. And at my parents' house, along with Elmo and Ernie is my sister's dog Buckwheat. Crazy but delightful!
• Christmas Eve church service
• Christmas morning with my family around the tree
• Christmas day with Ben's family and nephew Logan
• Maybe possibly please oh please seeing some snow... it snowed there last weekend so maybe some has stuck around!
• French fries from Kriegers. Oh sweet sweetness.
• Re-watching LOST season 3.
• Playing Wii with my parents.
• Shopping at mom's scrapbooking store... I've been waiting!
• Eating whatever sort of delectable meat my dad has smoked.
• Giving presents... I love this part! I mean, don't get me wrong - I'm no saint, I love getting presents too. But I really love to pick out specific things for people and watching them open everything!
• Playing a real (albeit slightly out of tune) piano

I can't wait! Just one more day and we'll be on our way through "scenic" Southern Illinois, headed home to our families and friends and celebrating Christmas!

I hope wherever you are and whoever you're with that you are as excited for your Christmas plans as I am!