Something/Someone That Makes You Happy / Blog Everyday in June #4

Today I am supposed to tell you about something or someone that makes me happy. I can only pick ONE?! That doesn't seem fair, does it?

Do I pick a thing or a person? Holy crap, this isn't easy.

So, since it would be hard to pick just one person or just one thing I have opted to pick someone that will have no idea that I picked her, she doesn't read.

Her full name is...

Miss Sophie Jean Green Bean Pants Marrs Emmich

Her rap name is Teaspoon, cause she's straight gangsta. 

That's right, I picked my dog. She's a lovely little snuggle of love that doesn't judge me if I'm not dressed well, if I gain a couple of pounds, or if I'm just in an ugly mood. I can't begin to count the number of times that she has comforted me while I cried for some unknown reason, even licked the tears off of my face. 

In 2005, I had a burning desire to have a puppy. I searched online and in the newspaper, but just a few weeks later my brother told me about a puppy that lived a few houses down from a friend. The dog was called 'Little Bit' and she was no longer wanted in this home. 

My bro picked up the puppy and brought her over to my apartment in Tulsa. A scared dog was placed in my lap, she was very timid and didn't make a single sound. I fought it for a few minutes, but it was love at first sight. After a short time together she was returned to her home in Verdigris, a home that was literally planning her death. An unwanted gift with an expiration date.

I knew this would be my new pal and I planned to pick her up. A day or two later I pulled into the drive way and behind a trashcan I saw some fur, it was my new doggie! They left a half used bag of food and promised that she had been given all of her shots and that she was at least 6 months old. They had also, for some unknown reason, cut her tail off. 

I took her home and cleaned her up. In that process I found the largest tick I have ever seen, on her face. I called the Vet, the one they had promised me had already seen her, and they had no record of a dog by that name or description. I took her to my Vet and was told that she was maybe 4 months old. She received her shots and started her pampered life as my buddy, I gave her the birthday of February 17th and the Doc agreed that it was probably close.

The past 8 years have been quite wonderful. Sophie has lived through being attacked by a large dog, eating rat poison, pancreatitis, and a 1,300 mile move. She rides in airplanes with ease, on drugs of course, and she's got a vertical that you wouldn't believe. She's learned to love my husband and has become his shadow.

Thank you Sophie Jean, I am blessed to have you in my life. 

Receiving her blessing from Father Bob

An afternoon nap on the couch

Proof that she models on the side, I haven't seen a dime.

I Need a Boat

I do love a good boat ride, but I'd prefer to not need one to commute to work. This rain is cray y'all! 

It started raining early on Wednesday morning and has been coming frequently since then. During my drive to work I prefer to use a service road to get to the parking garage and that road is officially closed. It makes that drive a bit longer and me less happy.

It also makes me go near the Dunkin Donuts and I swear I can smell the bagels and muffins. I swear they are calling my name! But I have managed to drive by two days in a row without stopping. WINNING!

This just might be the most exciting news in my life. No lie. It's been a bit norm around these parts. 

OH! Miss Sophie Jean visited the doggie spa today for a bath and hair cut!

My adorable baby in her car seat, that she hates so much. 

Just a Cold Little Prostitute

Reporting from NJ where the current temperature is a lovely 18°F.

I know that I lucked out last year with an extremely mild winter, but that doesn't mean that I have to be happy about freezing my tail off this year. It's cold y'all!

Every night, between 10:00pm and 11:00pm, we walk our precious little Sophie Jean. It's normally not a big task, but last night the temperatures were around 14°F. A doggie must, obviously, go outside at least a few times a day, so we bundled up and headed downstairs. It wasn't until we hit the ground floor, two flights of stairs behind us, I realized that I had managed to put on a hoodie, scarf, coat, and gloves. My lower half didn't fare so well. I was wearing a rather thin pair of pajama pants, yes...I wear my PJ pants outside, judge all you want. On top of this, I wasn't wearing any socks and my slippers didn't really stop the wind from nearly instantly freezing my feet. I may or may not be able to feel my little toe on my right foot right now. #dogwalkfail 

This morning I walked outside to be slapped across the face by 11°F...I think I cried but my tears must have instantly froze, so I can't be sure.

My health woes haven't changed too much. I'm in a waiting game with my body until March 6th, one day before husbands birthday. I pray that his gift will be good news!

Okay, so my post title has a bit of meaning.

No, I'm not an actual prostitute...I just play one in church.

Yes, yours truly will be playing the one and only Mary Magdalene during Lent.

Should I be insulted? Do I look like a hooker? I hope not! I guess I'm one of the few of the appropriate age and willingness to rock out a 5 minute monologue. I wonder what my costume will look like, hmmm...

Stay warm!

Sandy, Athena, and Sophie Jean

I know that everyone is very well aware of the nasty Miss Sandy, we survived.

Winter Storm Athena roared through our neighborhood on Wednesday...

This is the only picture I took, because I only went outside once and I wanted a glove back on my cold little hand, but we survived.

Yesterday I received a frantic call from my other half, our doggie Sophie Jean wasn't feel well. This is not normal for our little girl, she's been extremely healthy and minus the troubles caused by our previous landlords...read about it here.

We take her for regular check ups, she gets her necessary medicines (flea, tick, heart worm), all in all she is a happy and healthy doggie.

So, being that this was out of the ordinary we rushed her to the vet where we were told (after some crazy expensive test!) that she was suffering from pancreatitis. She would need to be admitted to the pet hospital for overnight care, then returned the following day for continued care. 

We took her over to the same hospital that saw her for the above mentioned incident. She was admitted and we went home, helpless. As crazy as might sound, Miss Sophie Jean has filled my life with love for nearly 8 years. My husband has become incredibly attached to her and we just felt horrible. She wasn't there to keep my feet warm or to snuggle with us on the couch, it was a sad sad night.

This is what she looked like when we picked her up this morning at 7am

They had to put the cone on her because she was chewing at the IV in her right front leg, poor thing.

She was dropped off at the Vet at 9am and we will pick her up before 7pm tonight, she is expected to make a full recovery.

So, we will survive!!

Bring it on life, this little family can handle it all!

Laundry and Poison

Since I'll be using this as my 'running diary' going forward I'll write this in order of the miles I have completed thus far.

My first official run, noted in my last post, was on June 19th.  I had promised myself that I would ease into this in order to avoid burning out or hurting myself.  So, I didn't run on the 20th! Go ME!

June 21 - 1.25 miles - 12 min 54 sec

As you can see, I'm not exactly up to warp speed just yet.  I've been watching the Olympic trials over the last couple of weeks and I've realized that while my organizational skills may be mad awesome, my running skills are not.  But hey, I never said I want to run a mile in 4 minutes...because my legs would immediately fall off and I would die.

June 23 - 2.0 miles - 21 min 50 sec

Mr. E had to do some more work on his car.  I was corrected and told that he does have a name, it's The Count.  I don't love it, but he is 10 and I don't think he would appreciate a name change at his age.  Anyway, the fuel sensor went out and needed to be replaced.  I spent the day/night cleaning the apartment, squeezed in a run, and prepared some food while he spent the majority of the night and early morning in the trunk of 'The Count'.  With the help of our normally intoxicated downstairs neighbor, of course!  Fun times friends. 

My next run was put on hold a little bit because Miss Sophie Jean thought it would be a fantastic idea to eat a big block of rat poison!  For all those pet owners out there, if your furry friend goes #2 and it’s the shade of a green apple Laffy Taffy or a lime flavored Mike and Ike...you have a rat poison eater on your hands and they need medical attention ASAP!  We rushed our pet daughter to the Animal Emergency center in Lyndhurst, NJ.  She was treated by a wonderful Oklahoma State Grad, Dr. Jeff.  We were very pleased with how quickly and well she was treated.  Of course, my puppy is the one in 100,000 that has an allergic reaction to the injectable form Vitamin K so we actually made two trips to the hospital that night!  I'm so happy that she is on her way to a full recovery, only 3 weeks of tricking her into taking her pill twice a day and a blood test at her normal vet...and hopefully she will get a clean bill of health!

We are those crazy people that think that our dog is actually a mini person, so we were extremely upset with our landlords over this issue.  You see, we don't have any memory or documentation that the nasty rat poison was put into our home!  The claim they told us and unless we want to fight them in court we just have to accept it.  The vet bill was $380...it lands in the category of a lot of money, but not enough money to sue someone over.   

June 26 - 1.0 miles - 9 min 59 sec

Let me tell you, I had to sprint out the last tenth of a mile or so to get that number under 10 minutes.  I had set out to do a longer run, but the heat was getting to me so I opted to run 1 mile as fast as I could. 

June 28- 1.5 miles - 16 min 58 sec

About this time we have officially started to prepare for our 4th of July visit from my Mama, Dad and Bro! WHOOP WHOOP!  I have been stocking up on fun things to eat and decorate with to celebrate this wonderful holiday!  We hit the streets on Saturday to pick up a new swimsuit and new shorts for the mister; first stop was Old Navy...MISTAKE!  There was literally a line for those damn $1.00 flip flops!  We abandoned that idea.  Instead we hit up DSW and Target, met the Mother and Sister-in-Law for lunch and then visited two grocery stores for some awesome deals! That's what you might call a nice little Saturday! 

June 30 - 1.6 miles - 17 min 21 sec

Not bad after a day out and about if you ask me!

Our Sunday was intended for fun so we made a trip to Bayonne Park.  30 minutes into our whiffle ball game Sophie got way too hot and had to be taken home.  While at home I threw in a load of laundry.  For those that are unaware of our current lease agreement...we pay an extra $50 a month to use the washer and dryer located just outside our apartment door.  A fee that is totally worth not having to drive and sit at a Laundromat, right?  The only problem is that we share it with our landlords and, for some reason; they do laundry almost every day.  When we spoke with them about the rat poison/vet bills we mentioned this frustration and they said that we would have at least one full day on the weekend to do laundry.  Also, we would have at least one day during the week as well, if we needed to do an emergency load on another day we would just have to send a text message to let them know. 

So, remember that load of laundry I threw in?  Well, I switched it to the dryer and then we took the cars to the car wash and ran a couple of errands.  When we returned our laundry, which was still WET, had been removed from the dryer and was replaced with load of their laundry!  I WAS LIVID!  After I calmed myself down I sent a text to them regarding this unpleasant situation, apparently one half of the couple didn't know about us having laundry in there and apologized.  So, let me ask anyone that has made it this far in my very long post...would you continue to pay the $50 a month for this inconsiderate situation?! 

July 1 - 1.6 miles - 17 min 6 sec

I must go now and prepare for my visitors! 

Total Running Miles - 9.95

June and it's friend humidity

Well, yet again it's been quite some time since my last post.  Par for the course, huh?  It's now June and the heat should be hitting us in the next day or two, along with it's friend...humidity.  I'm hoping that the Diana Ross look makes a comeback, quick.

The Mister and I have been mostly working our little fingers to the bone, long hours and not enough relax time.  We are not alone in this I'm quite sure. 

Some recent happenings - Miss Sophie Jean had her annual Vet visit.  Being around multiple dogs and people is not her forte, so she spent the majority of the time on my lap shaking like a furry leaf.  The vet tech had to hold her down during the exam and she received 3 shots in total.  Traumatic Saturday in our lives.  We went for a walk in the park to ease her mind afterwords and to walk off the shock of the $350 bill.  She's worth it, but Lordy!   

On the note of not spending a ton of money ... my couponing has yielded a large amount of goodies that will be put to good use and a number of things that will make great donation items.  We are eating and living well on our extremely tight budget...we even managed to afford some hummus, steak, and feta cheese this week!  High Rollers!

My male half won a CoffeMate Keurig machine at work last week, we are now accepting donations in the form of K-cups.  I'll be happy to provide you our address.

Living on a tight budget is tough work folks.  I watch the Real Housewives of whatever city they are in that day and feel the need to scream any one or all of the following phrases...

"HOW DO YOU AFFORD THIS JUNK?"

"WHY DOESN'T YOUR FACE SHOW REAL EMOTION?"

"WILL YOU PLEASE HIRE ME TO LISTEN TO YOUR BULLSHIT AND PAY ME A CRAPLOAD OF MONEY?!"

Here is an example of what we have to do instead of paying others to do it for us...

We...okay mostly he...spent this past Sunday replacing a fan in the nameless Monte Carlo.  After helping him for a mere 20 minutes I was ready to jump in Gordy (Grand Prix), drive to Michigan, and punch GM in the face.  Could we possibly make things more difficult people?  You have to remove a million brackets and half a million hoses to get at said fan...then you'll most likely lose a pint of blood from your hands in the process.  If you had the joy of looking at my hands the last couple of days let me clear a few things up.  No, I did not punch a window or get into a slap fight with Edward Scissor Hands.  In the end, after many hours of hard work the fan has been replaced and *knock on wood* is working well. 

In the middle of this project we took a 6 hour break to celebrate Father's Day with my Father-in-law, PopPop-in-law, and Uncles-in-law...of course the ladies were there too!  It was nice to relax and just chill while eating some yummy burgers! 

I did miss spending the day with my family...especially this guy...

But they will be here SOON to celebrate Independence Day! Yippee!!

And tonight I shall watch basketball...

But I'm not Italian...I think I'm Scottish.

I was going to do a post containing some of the wedding photos, but I decided against it for two reasons.  The first being that we still don't have all of them / the ones we do have are downloaded on my work laptop. And the second reason is that we would like for our families to be first to see them!  So...that will happen soon.  Stay tuned.

We've been super busy preparing for Christmas.  It's going to be a little sad for me...it will be the first away from my family, um, EVER.  For anyone that is counting that's about 30 years.  I have been focusing on work, cooking, and wrapping presents to keep my mind off of it. 

So, I'm sure y'all are shocked by the title of this post.  What?! She's not Italian?! Who would have thunk it?! BUT I got my guido on and made us some 'pie'.

Pepperoni, Olive, and Onion Pizza

I was rather proud of myself, the closest thing to homemade pizza I had done before has been that DiGiorno stuff.  I must admit that this was actually my second go at pizza making (um...in a less than one week period)...I screwed up the first go around and made some yummy Calzones, also known as...Kendra screwed up and tried to make something that looked semi-acceptable.

I'll now leave you with a photo of one of the best girls in the whole entire world.  She's loving, loyal, and playful! 

Miss Sophie Jean Marrs Emmich

I believe that she is adjusting to life in New Jersey quite well, however we haven't gotten any snow yet so this may all change very soon.  She is usually confused by the snow and looks at you like you personally removed the grass to spite her.  It's similar to the look that I get on a daily basis due to the lack of carpet in our apartment.  She can barely get enough traction to jump up on the bed and about once a week she doesn't quite make it and falls down in a very cartoon like fashion.  She just happens to be laying next to me sleeping...it's a hard knocked life.

See y'all later!!