Thinking Sunny Thoughts!

This is where i wish that we were right now....at the great little bar next to the dog beach in Key West. This was our "Welcome Home From Iraq" vacation that the husband, the hounds and I took back in '04. That is the husband in the background, making conversation with another bar patron, while the dogs look on. We spent a great deal of time on that vacation at that bar. The dogs would get their swim on at the beach, and then we would move on up to the bar for some Corona refreshments, and to soak in the sunshine, and watch the water.

My poor parents are STILL stuck in the Chicago Amtrak station. Here is a tip...IF you travel by train, always always always book a room, or roomette. If the train is delayed, you get to wait in the warm, cozy lounge. There is a fireplace, comfy seats, big screen tv. If you go coach, you will have to wait in the virutally unheated lobby. My parents have been in Chicago now for almost 24 hours. Amtrak DID put them up in a hotel for the day though yesterday. Poor 'rents had not had a SHOWER since leaving Seattle on friday, due to the fact that the pipes on their train were frozen! ACK!!!
Mark my words, my father will NOT be traveling over the holidays ever ever every again!!
He is hanging in there though, and being a good sport. I am heading out to the grocery today, and i will be buying the man some beer. Could you imagine, if after all this, he got to my house and i did not have a beer to hand to him?

Snow....lots and lots of snow. I have done my morning shovel out, and i am now enjoying my first cup of coffee.

Cute dog stockings, and snow pics!

Henry and Fred are having a good ole time in the snow!! The snow was nice and powdery the other day...love it! The drifts looked like snow dunes.

These cute little stockings were a gift from my good friend Gaylen. SO cute!! I had to hang them up high in the kitchen, otherwise Fred will love them to bits! Especially after i fill them with treats!! She also sent some adorable ornaments, which have since been disperesed throughout the house. I know she is reading this, and wondering why i did not take pics of the package like all the other good bloggers....but i am not a very good blogger!! i will have to track down the rest of the package and snap pics of it all in a bit!

Thanks, G!! I love it all!!!

OOPSIE!

Henry is so stinking cute. I had both dogs do their annual Christmas Tree pose, and then Henry was so excited when the modeling session was over with. He picked up his kitty, and REALLY started to wag that tail. The tail smacked right into the glass ball ornament (you can see it in the pic, down low, right between the two of them) and it exploded. I was cracking up, so of course i had to have him pose with it.

Thinking about Germany

I am watching a PBS special on the German Christkindlmarkts right now, and it is making me miss Germany so much! i will never forget the smell of the fabulous Langoens Christmas Market! Champignon mit speck, and it was HEAVENLY. And all the gluhwein, which was so nasty, but the more you drank, the better it got. I remember being soooo cold, wearing thermals under my clothes, and still freezing. Our first Christmas was one of the best. We went with all of our friends to the market, and just got sloppy. Afterwards, we went back to the XO's house, and at about 2am, his wife cooked us up the BEST breakfast burritos ever. Donya is such a good Texan!
We hit several Markets during our three-years in Deutschland. Nurnburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, etc., but i think that small one in Langoens was the best. And their Oktoberfest was the best, too!!!

I just bought myself a Christmas present!

I have a tv upstairs in my office, equipped with rabbit ears. I can get CBS on this tv, and that is pretty much it. Come Feb, i will get zilch. So, today i called the cable company, and found that it will cost $41.25 for them to come out and equip me with a new cable box. Woowhoo...a treat for me. I spend a lot of time up here, as it is also my craft room. I like to have the tv on for background, and well...you know i am a tv addict. Honestly, i cannot believe i lasted an entire year with just CBS!! I see myself spending a LOT more time up in this room now, which will save us SO much money for several reasons. First, i do not have to have the propane fireplace running in this room, like i do in the downstairs tv room. Second, the tv downstairs is HUGE, and uses a LOT of electricity. By watching up here, i will lengthen the life of the tv downstairs, because heaven forbid i turn a tv off and read a book. So really, i did not just buy myself a Christmas present...i SAVED us money. SO, with that said...i guess i can go find another Christmas present now! ;o)

WOW...I am not a cow after all!!!

Well, many of you (all four of you who read my blog!!) know that i never, ever weigh myself. I tend to only weigh myself at the doctors office. I have a scale in my house, but it is in the bathroom that i never use. This summer i was diagnosed with high(ish) cholesterol, and it was a HUGE wake-up call to me. I am not, nor was i then, HUGE, but i was packing on some extra weight, and eating out at restaurants like nobody's business. After my diagnosis, i decided right then and there that it was time to get everything under control. I concentrated on whole grains, lean meats, upping my fiber, and just eating WHOLE, HEALTHY foods. I cut out restuarants for over a month. HUGE HUGE thing for me. I cut out alcohol for the most part.
I was rewarded last month with a much lower cholesterol count, having raised my good and lowered my bad. I also lost weight. I think at last months doctors visit i had lost about 10-15 pounds? Well, today i decided to weigh myself, and i weigh 148! This is pretty major for me. i have not weighed that since my 20's, when we lived in Germany. Best way to gain weight? Move to Germany and drink some awesome beer, and eat pommes and schnitzel at every opportunity, for three years!
So...WOW...i am pretty freaking pleased with myself.

Stuff

I got a wild hair and decided that i was going to make all of my Christmas cards this year. I have only dabbled in card making, so these are not exactly professional looking..but oh well, i had fun!

Henry was following me, and positioned himself in front of all of the shots. How cute is he? I love him. He is quite possibly the sweetest creature on earth. The table at the top of the post WAS just a card table with a Christmas Village puzzle on it. Now it has all my card making supplies, the scarf i am still knitting on, study materials for my final, and who knows what else. sheesh. I know how to make a mess, don't i?

Last night while sitting on the couch, i looked down on either side of me, and all i could see were feet. Well, for Henry i saw feet and a snout. He sticks the feet out when he needs to cool down a bit. Fred only has one foot partially sticking out.

It doesn't take much....

....but i am REALLY excited about something i just discovered last friday. The USA network airs Wings everyday, sometimes more than once a day!!! Now, i know The Husband is reading this, and just GROANING. When we were first married, or maybe we were still living in sin, in our crappy little mobile home I would fall asleep EVERY night to Wings on tv. it aired every night at 11, and 11:30pm. I set the sleep timer for midnight. I never EVER get tired of this show. Well, now i can tivo it, and i am watching it RIGHTNOW...and just laughing my butt off. I know, totally corny humor, but i LOVE this freaking show. LOVE IT. This show is one of the reasons i was excited to move to the Northeast, because i would finally have a feasible chance of getting to Nantucket, where Wings takes place.
Now if only some network with a heart would start airing Buffy again, i might BURST with joy.

Well, now that i think about it.......

.....it COULD be chipmonks that are in the walls. I remember seeing a little one scurry under the old front steps, and disappear under the siding. awesome. oh well...at least they are cuter than mice. i am pretty sure it is a mouse in the actual house though. Fred would NOT have given up if it were a chipmonk. he would have upended that couch in a second.
And Gaylen....really? do you think i would have put you in a mouse-house room? No...the room is the tiny little door at the top of the stairs. I would prefer to NOT use it as a storage room, because i do not like to go into storage rooms like that....but The Husband has other ideas. the end result is that nothing in there gets used, because i refuse to go in there.
It is cold here. my thermometer says -1.3*. yikes. me no likey.

Seriously, who needs a cat.....

.....when you have a Fred?
Fred is definitely a cat. In fact, his nickname is "meow-meow". I realize that when The Husband and i call him that in front of other people, it is probably the most annoying thing to hit their ears, but i digress.
I was in the kitchen fixing a sandwich, and Fred BOLTED from the kitchen to the couch, and tried to get under it. Awww crap. I have been hearing some rustling in the walls, and now i have proof that there is a freaking mouse in the house. Fred would not leave FOOD for nothing. He would however leave dead, inanimate food for the prospect of live, to-be-killed-and-eaten-while-still-puke-warm food. Just like a good cat.
What did Henry do while all this was going on? Stared fixedly at my bologna and cheese sandwich. He knew a bite was coming his way, and there was no way he was going to chase after a future friend when there was a bite of sandwich coming his way. He knew i was going to card-making class later, and he would have plenty of time to root out the mouse, and be BFF's with it.

It's card class day!

I am SOOOO excited to be going to my Christmas card-making class today. I need a break from the not-really-studying-for-finals-but-REALLY-thinking-about-it. I have a huge pile of cards from last year, but i cannot find them. The Husband put them away, in a really really great spot. Before they could be finished and mailed. Along with the address list. And the stamps. And it is almost one year later, and i still have not found the great storage spot that he put them in, nor does he remember where he put them. That makes it sound as though my house is super cluttered, but it really is not. We just have ample storage in the garage, and on the second floor. There is also one room i am a little scared to go into...i call it "Mouse House", or "Spider Haven". It is also known as "the room i am scared to go into, as the floor is crickety, and i have an aversion to plummeting through the ceiling into the kitchen-dining room." It is where the tree and decorations are stored...so we will see if i get the tree up this year. My parents might be getting conned into going in there when they arrive. Either that, or i could do what my friend Mike did when we lived in Germany. He did not want to get a tree, so he threw some garland and lights on a floor lamp. Voila, the Christmas Lamp. Almost as good as a Festivus Pole.

Anywhoot...wish me luck with my card class. Apparently, i will be making 20 cards. Then i am hoping to buy materials to make 20 more when i get home. And somewhere in there, i REALLY need to log into my school account and finish up that final.

some knitting, a sad Vizsla story, and an annoying movie story

Well, yesterday started out with an email from a friend, telling me about a Vizsla in the local mall pet shop. If you know me, you know that i am vehemently opposed to pet stores that sell dogs and cats, the ONLY exception being the shops that sell the ones they get from shelters. I don't need to go into it here, most people i know undertand the mulititude of reasons. I contacted the local Vizsla rescue person, and offered up my services for her. There is not anyone in my region that does rescue, so it looks like i am it. By doing this, i will be a "spotter" for the local shelters. This means i will make regular trips to the shelters, and do a physical check of their dogs to make sure that they do not have any Vizslas in. If they do, the shelters will hopefully release them to me, i will do a short-term foster (if Fred and Henry will let me!), and then transport the dog to other rescue people, who will then work tirelessly to rehome the dog.

After speaking to the rescue person, she sent me an article to bring to the pet shop. This article is for the prospective buyers of this Vizsla, an info sheet on a V's needs, requirements, etc. They were very thankful for the article. I then asked to hold the poor boy. Oh boy, he was a mess. He was born in August, and has been there for a month already. Beyond horrible for this boy, but it also means that they will not be dealing with V's anymore, as they know that they cannot make a profit on them. Anyways, i loved on him, and told him he was a good boy. Then i reluctantly handed him back. All i wanted to do was put him in my bag and run out the door with him.

Then i went on to the movie theatre, where i was meeting some friends to see Twilight. Was enjoying the movie, and then a very HUGE, very loud teenager just could not keep her mouth shut, nor could she stop texting. This frustrated her friend to no end who kept saying, loudly "your missing it!", and she would then relay the entire scene to her friend. OHMEINGOTT!! I finally "shhhhsd" them, and the huge one FLIPPED OUT. I thought she was going to fling her obese self right out of her chair and on top of me. I decided to let the manager shush her. The poor manager then was subjected to her sass. No one could shut this mess up. I was so annoyed, and my friend and i were so pissed, we just decided to remove ourselves from the situation before it escalated. We got our money back, and got a free pass to another movie.

After i got home, i talked to another friend who was sitting in another part of the theatre, and she told me that security came and removed this person, but not without her disrupting the ENTIRE theatre. WTF?

Ok...now lets end this short novel with some knitting. This is a scarf that i am working on. The pattern is courtesy of Jimmy Beans Wool, it is their Scarves to Throws series, and i am doing Month 6. I am using my FAVORITE yarn, Lornas Laces Shepherd Worsted, and the colorway is Tuscany. I cannot wait til i finish it. This is the BEST yarn ever.