It's Friday!

Friday usually means date night in this house. This Friday will include a date, but we also have to cram in errands because it's going to be a busy weekend. Saturday will be spent on the road. We are buying some new chairs for our dining room table and we will be celebrating my grandmother's 85th birthday on Sunday.  Today? I'm going to get some work done. By work, I mean non-housework (it's done) and focus on the book and other business tasks.  It's been feeling like Spring is finally here so I've spent my free moments outside and I'm slacking on the book. I'm hoping to get some good adventure pics tomorrow and I have a book review of sorts scheduled for the blog this weekend.

 It's not my usual style of review because it's a book I read about 8 years ago, and has since been made into a movie. I watched a documentary about it this morning and was reminded of the book/movie and how moved I was THEN. I'm also very surprised at my perspective on it now. Hence the upcoming review. 

Our Walk

What a fun morning Desmond and I had yesterday. It was nice to get out into the fresh air with no purse or car keys. 

Let's talk about this weather, shall we? Winter is finally over. The warm sun has never felt so good! I'm going to try and enjoy the day...seems hard to believe one would have to try, but it is tax day. Worst day of the year, in my opinion. It should be called, let's take money from the people with work ethics, who bust their asses every day and let's use it to support people who do not bust their asses at all, or to bail the government out, or to continue to pay our politicians ridiculous amounts of money to push paper around. While I may have a live and let live attitude as far as government involvement in one's life is concerned, I AM most certainly fiscally conservative. I'm not the first of middle class America to have these sentiments and I'm in good company. Oh well, I have THE cutest dog in the world, and really, what's better than that?

My Morning

I got a good amount accomplished on this gorgeous spring morning. Tidied the house, made beds, vacuumed, planted some chives, rosemary and basil, and sat in the sun to read for a bit. Not a bad day as far as Mondays go. Took some sweet pics of Desmond waking up Bella with doggie kisses.

Cold and Rainy Day Comfort

Rainy Days

Rainy days are for knitting. This what I'm currently working on. Sleeve one of two (obviously) to a fabulous sweater. The pattern can be found for free at purlbee.com. It's their sweatshirt sweater. I'm knitting it up in a worsted wool. I'm tweaking the pattern to meet my needs and can't wait to share the finished project. For some reason the link isn't posting here. Just do a search on their blog for the sweatshirt sweater. Comes right up and you CAN print the pattern for free. If you don't want to print all of the pictures, and I don't to save on ink, you can scoot on over to printfriendly.com I like to print patterns and put them into page protectors and put them into a binder. It's handy when I want to keep things pertaining to a pattern (notes, swatches, yarn colors and brands, etc) all in one spot. I also have the binder broken up into categories, i.e. hats, mittens, sweaters, slippers, etc. I also do not like a million pages of pictures of the pattern, which is where printfriendly.com comes in handy. It converts the pattern and saves on valuable ink! Awesome site!

Sierra: Rescue and Rescuer 2002-2014

I have two topics close to my heart and those are pitbulls and rescue dogs. I often avoid conversations with people on these two topics, as I can get most heated and I have a hard time dealing with ignorance. ESPECIALLY when it comes to talking about my dog. I always have said, it isn't my dog you need to worry about. I lost Sierra right before Christmas 2014. She succumbed to kidney failure and it truly was the worst time in my entire life. It is four months into the new year, and I still struggle with her loss on a daily basis. Not to say we aren't enjoying our newest addition, because Desmond has blended seamlessly into our lives. As a tribute to Sierra, I plan on occasionally featuring dogs, those rescued and those available for rescue, to bring light upon her breed, breed restrictions and bans, rescues in general, and spaying/neutering your pets. I'm also a HUGE fan of Cesar Milan and Rachael Ray, both of whom have pitbulls and are strong supporters of all of the above. In fact, all of the proceeds from Rachael Ray's dog food goes to support pitbull rescues. When my kids and I were at the Bangor Humane Society looking for a dog, I never thought in a million years I would be bringing home a pitbull, though thankfully all of her papers said lab mix, which would prove beneficial when relocating. All of the other dogs were barking and some were growling. Sierra was just sitting there. She wasn't terribly pretty that day. She had been found wandering the streets, her body out of shape, having just had puppies and after being vetted, it was deemed that she had been used as a breeder. She was used and abused and just trying to stay alive. Enter this single (at the time) mom and we locked eyes and I just knew she was mine. I filled out the paperwork (Saturday), and brought her home that Monday. I promised her she would never be mistreated again. Up till this point, dogs in my life had just been dogs, pets for my kids, or pets for me and my siblings when we were kids. I had never known the loyalty and true devotion of a shelter dog. Sierra was grateful and devoted to me every single day of her life. She was always by my side. Always on command. Always on alert. Everyone she encountered was won over by her kind and sweet disposition. If only love could have kept her alive, she would be here forever. Even though we have a new boy, and we love Desmond dearly, he isn't a rescue and I know my rescuing days are not over. I'm not sure when or where Sierra will find me again, but I do believe it'll be in another rescue. I will lock eyes and I will just know. I'm happy that Desmond has only known love and joy in his short one year on earth. I would love for every dog to have his kind of life and never know the kind of life Sierra had to live before me. So I urge anyone in the position to own a dog, to give a shelter dog a chance. I would also encourage fostering and/or volunteering at your local shelter if you aren't in a position to own a dog at this time.

Rocket

When we moved into the new house, after leaving one with just hardwood floors and tile, we realized we were going to need a vacuum. This house also has hardwood floors and tile, but has plush carpeting in Bella's bedroom and running up the stairs and both landings, and wall to wall in the upstairs hallway. I had such good luck with my Shark steam mop, we decided to give their new Rocket vacuum a try.

The two reasons I need to vacuum daily...Bella and Desmond! It's been about two weeks since I've owned the Rocket. I have collected enough dog hair to make another dog. I love how the Rocket propels forward. It does go very fast, so you need to be prepared for that. I love dumping the container at the end of vacuuming. I also love how it came with its own hanger for the broom closet. It has its own spot and I'm not tripping over it or trying to maneuver around it in the closet.

Night Circus

I'm currently reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern on my Kindle.

The reading is going a bit slow for me right now, but I've also had little time to just sit and read. There seems to always be something else that needs to be organized, or cleaned, or bought for the house. I think we've officially been in the house for three weeks or so. Last Friday, the weather was gorgeous and I was able to sit outside and read for about an hour. I've heard fabulous things about the book, and the imagery is amazing, but I'm still kind of waiting for the story to happen. Not very often, I will be so excited to finally get my hands on a book that everyone seems to love, and then it just kind of falls flat. I'm about halfway through the novel, so I'm hoping things in the story start coming together. Rarely do I give up on books. So far, we have two dueling magicians, their two "children" and a circus which appears and disappears rather quickly. I've read an awful lot of words to only be at this point in the story. While knitting, I've been listening to Pride and Prejudice in audiobook format on my iPad. Listening to audiobooks is a true talent. If I'm distracted at all, it is a no go. I'm trying to work through the classics, revisiting some and reading some for the very first time, and since I can't spend my whole day reading, I can listen to a book while cleaning, or running, or even while driving. Big plans for today consist of laundry, going for a run, working on character sketches for my book, trying to figure out why Adsense used to work on my blog, but has stopped doing so, and CLEANING OUT MY CAR!

Major Update

So HELLO everyone! Do I even have any readers anymore? I left the blogging world last July, I believe, for a number of reasons, the main one being working 60ish hours per week. Football season at URI was also starting up in full and being married to the former Director of Football Operations (more on that) left me quite busy on my days off. I promised a major update so here goes: I'm no longer working. WHAT?! I know, crazy. What these last few weeks of not working has proven to me is that I've been exhausted. Exhausted for a really long time. I like to keep busy so I don't have to deal with stuff and well, I've been dealing with said "stuff". Funny how you can only escape for so long. Will I go back to work? Yes. I am feeling the urge to write again which is huge for me. I'm feeling the urge to blog again (more on that too). I'm also going to entertain the thought of teaching again. I know for sure that I'm not sure what I want to do yet. My husband (and sometimes blog contributer) got a fancy new job and so we've relocated back to the state of Maine. I can't say I'm pleased with being back, as I loved living on the ocean in Narragansett, Rhode Island. I worked hard to make that area feel like our home for the last 8 years. What I am feeling is committed to making this part of our journey, however long it lasts, fun and adventurous. My beloved Sierra passed away this December. You can read my archives from 2006 thru last summer about her. We added a new wonderful addition to our family. Our fabulous Desmond is now ONE! He is taking over right where Sierra left off and we couldn't be more pleased with his demeanor and funny antics. And yes, I named him after the character Desmond on Lost. Apparently, when my husband was a little boy, he wanted a dog so his parents gave him a stuffed dog, which he carried around and had named Desmond. SO we deemed it another instance of fate, like most of our relationship, and Desmond was to be our next dog's name. He loves my husband like Sierra loved me. It is so sweet to watch, but makes my heart so heavy at times because I miss my girl more than I could have ever imagined. We have a new house. We have spent the last few weeks living in a Pinterest world. Everything from window treatments, window hardware, paint colors, bed designs, you name it, it ALL came from Pinterest ideas. That's it about major updates...I'm the new secretary of Some Theatre Company and also on their board of directors. I've also joined Central Maine Roller Derby! I have a 5K color run coming up in early May. Moving forward with this blog is something I've been contemplating for about 9 months. I stopped altogether last summer and have since been overwhelmed with all of the "pro bloggers" out there in huge numbers, and I just didn't have the time or creativity to be competitive. I've been blogging since 2003 and at one time, this blog was kind of a big deal. :) I'm not sure of the direction I would like to take the blog, but I have decided to not start over with it. I'm just going to leave the good, bad and ugly in my archives and try hard to not look back and cringe. I hope to showcase our Pinterest attempts, whether successful or not, what I'm knitting or crafting now, books I'm loving or hating and document every bump, bruise and (hopefully not) broken bone on my Derby journey. Look for Bella and Desmond anecdotes and the occasional meal in pictures. It's good to be back in Blogland!

View this Morning

View this Morning

Only 5!

Only five posts in six months! I guess I've gotten over it. I can probably blame Facebook. It's so much easier to document life events that way with anecdotes and pictures and then share with family. My reading is SOLID right now. Got lots of good books in my July queue. Tonight's book is The Round House by Louise Erdrich. Also reading Sophie's Choice and The Bridge of Sighs.

I went to Roger Williams Zoo today. Had a good time. Wish I had had longer to hang and explore. I am so looking forward to the weekend and the sun and the pool.

6/13/14

Happy Friday the 13th!
I woke up this morning (again 4:45) and felt fine. When I finally got up and got the coffee going, the room was literally spinning. I'm going to blame the barometer and the humidity and living on the ocean, combined with my extra long run yesterday, plus allergies, all affecting my inner ear. It settled down enough for me to run 40 minutes today, because I refuse to let this set me back. Zach treated me to dinner at Chen's late last night. He knows I've been stressed out as of late. Not sure what I'm going to do about it all yet. I've turned into the Gump of the running world and still haven't been able to outrun this shitstorm. I'm doing a ton of reading lately. My current read is John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River. I've spent the last two weekends sitting in the sun, reading and trying to relax. This weekend I will be getting the pool ready for summer. Bella and I are super excited to go swimming!! I'm hoping my summer schedule is pretty lax so she and I can get some weekdays in at the beach. I leave the weekends at the beach to the tourists. Man, they drive me crazy. You'd think after 7 summers in Narragansett, I'd be used to it all.

5/7/14

Sooooo, totally skipped the blog in April. Bella turned 4 the day after Easter! Time flies!!! A student of mine passed away suddenly in April. It's just been full of ups and downs. Yesterday though, my husband looked at a new house for us and texted me the pics and I finally felt peaceful about it all. Not sure if that'll be the one, but I feel like things are definitely good. I feel ready for the change and the challenge. Plus what's not exciting about decorating a new place together?

3/13/14

Apparently I can only blog once per month these days. Just so busy with work, and the regular day to day and on top of that I've been sick at least every other week since sometime in December. I'm going to make this a positive post so I'm going to write a list about what I'm grateful for...

1. My husband
2. Bella
3. The rest of the family
4. SIERRA
5. No snow with this storm that seems to have dropped close to 2 feet in all the states north of us.
6. My treadmill
7. Netflix
8. My Kindle
9. Knitting
10. Yummy adult beverages


Tomorrow night, I'm going on a date with my husband. The last two weeks we've had plans but I was sick both weekends. Even if it's just a drive thru. We are getting in the same car together.

2/15/14

Oh my word. We've had at least one snow day per week from school since my last post. Another 8-12 inches is expected today. At least the last storm was only rain for us here on the RI coast while the rest of the east, Georgia-Maine got snow and ice. We won't be so lucky with this next one. It's coming in off the water, in true Nor Eastern style. Puke, right? The good news is that I have no where to be until the 24th of February. So let it freaking snow, if it must. I had better have a spectacular spring/summer/fall after this.

Valentines was nice. I had a great dinner and yummy drinks with my fabulous, sexy husband. He bought me a new North Face Denali jacket. Time to retire my pink one. This new one is all black. I love it. Makes the weather a little more bearable. He's getting a good watch per his request, assuming the weather lets up so we can go pick it up. And we're making plans for our next vacation...Vegas!! I've never been. He's been several times. I'm so excited.

I finished Zach's wool hat. He's worn it all day, every day since I've made it. Haha. I'm finishing up a bulky alpaca cowl for myself. Not sure why exactly, but this yarn is a giant pain in the butt to knit with. Maybe it's the color...charcoal-ish...maybe it's the weight...could be my needles...size 15 bamboo circular. Could be me. Unlikely. I've finished Bella's knit cotton bunny. Just have to sew it together and stuff it. I'm going to cast on my husband's hat now that Zach's is off my needles.

So today is Saturday. I'm having a pajama-Lost marathon-knitting day to ride out the storm.

1/13/14

It's been a strange start to the new year. Not bad, just strange. The weather for instance. Yes, it's winter, but no it is never really really cold where we live. It typically hovers in the 30s-50s December through February. In these first weeks of January, we've had a snowstorm, followed by 60 degree weather and rain to melt it all immediately, then freezing weather between 0-30 degrees for almost 10 days and now we've been in the 50s for a five day stretch. My sinuses are really struggling to keep up with the temp/humidity changes. Other things are strange. Bella's behaving. My husband is organizing. I'm caught up on all in services at both of my jobs. Paperwork is complete and turned in on time. I know! Strange. My knitting has turned a huge corner. I will be finished with my husband's hat by tomorrow or Wednesday. I can knit socks, mittens, scarves, cozies, cables...but I'm finding hats to be my zen knitting. As much as I love my Addi Turbos, I really love my bamboo 16-inch circular. Thank you goes to my husband for accompanying me to the yarn store. I'm sure it was the least fun he's had in a while but he and Bella were good sports while I decided on the right wool for the project. I totally want to raise my own sheep. I'm running at a pretty good rate these days. Tried on one of my bikinis and can't say I had that mid-winter "oh my god" shock. Actually looked pretty darn good so this summer will be an awesome one, especially since Bella is more agreeable these days. I plan on being at the beach in all of my spare time and I will even try to tolerate the tourists. Try. I will try.

Happy Snow Day!

Happy New Year too. I got my eight point five hours in last night. Awake by 7:30. Second cup of coffee down the hatch. Listening to Pandora. House cleaned. Gonna go for my three mile run here in a bit and shower up. My crazy busy work schedule restarts full force on Monday. Totally need to get my head in the game. I think that was a High School Musical reference. Should finish up my second knitting project of the year this weekend. These are going to be cute little gifts. Birthdays probably. Goals for this month...clean out my closet. Get paperwork caught up for job number 2. Register for some races.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

I love Christmas! I start listening to the music while floating in my pool around July! Why? It helps ease the sadness of knowing you'll be saying goodbye to summer all too soon. I like my tree up the day after Thanksgiving by the latest. People complain daily about "It's too soon. It's too soon. The stores have stuff out too soon.". These same people then bitch about the Season going by too fast. Enjoy it then idiots! Stop being stingy. Stop being depressed. Enjoy. It. Stop comparing yourself with others. Christmas for me is quiet time. I slow down. I eat what I want. I read. I play games. I SMILE. I knit. I take a few days off. My husband and I like to gift each other items throughout the year and we rarely wait for Christmas, so by the time the big day arrives, neither of us really need or want anything. We had fun shopping this weekend for Bella because she's three and toys are fun to shop for! Yesterday she and I both got our nails done. She was so cute getting her first professional manicure! Hopefully a fun holiday tradition I can share with my best girl. Of course it was in the 60s this weekend, so I have more spring fever in me now than Christmas spirit! Bring on the beach days! Okay, bring on the WARM beach days! I live on the ocean, so every day is a beach day.