Raven and Lily

A playdate from earlier this month....watch their heads move in the first few seconds...

A peek into the future.

Ahh, it'll never happen. Raven was spayed at the shelter. But if she hadn't been, I can see Andrew making this request.


And NO. I have no reason to get an ultrasound. This one frame comic was on my Yahoo page this morning and I only posted it because of the dog's name.

Grandpa's Birthday

He would have had his 84th Birthday Breakfast here with a couple handfuls of friends and then he'd make a return trip for coffee at about 2:00pm. Instead, Mom and I had lunch here and saw a friend of Grandpa's. Funny how things fall into place like that.



Back in the middle of August, Mom gave me Grandpa's calendar from the year I was born. Apparently, nothing noteworthy happened after the first week of the year, because this is all he wrote. So to honor the day Grandpa was born in 1924, I'm posting a picture of the calendar he wrote in on the day I was born in 1982.

Circleville Pumpkin Festival

Come on now, doesn't it sound like fun? It was! Pumpkin ice cream, funnel cakes, brownies, beer, and a few three-quarter-ton pumpkins to inspire us all. We went down on Saturday night, and despite the near 40 temperatures, the crowds went wild for all the pumpkin fun to be had. Fair rides and moonbounces, potato sack slides and FOOD glorious FOOD, little kid art work and all the pumpkins you could dream of.









Get it? Roundtown, instead of Circleville... We thought it was clever.

Irony

Andrew likes to tell a certain almost 4-year-old story about us. It goes a little something like this:

My Dad had come to see me in Maryland, and Andrew and I had been dating for about 5 months. Dad had never really met him, so he took the two of us out to a local folky Italian place. The food was excellent, conversation was awkward, and it was moving time for me. Back at my apartment after dinner, Dad asked Andrew to hand his dessert to me so he could help Dad carry moving boxes up to my apartment. All was well until I tripped over the curb and sent Andrew's Neapolitan Cake flying onto the sidewalk where it met a sweet and chocolaty death. This occurred in January of 2005.

Tonight, we had dinner with my parents out in Reynoldsburg to celebrate Andrew's (31st!) birthday a weee bit early. We ordered dessert and the story from above was told. Again. And we laughed at me. Again. Then we got home. I drove, Andrew got out of the passenger's side door and promptly fed his caramel pie to our sidewalk. What is it with us not being able to hang on to leftovers? I ran inside to call my parents and leave a voicemail for them. Andrew was defending himself the whole time, saying his hands were full, whaa whaa whaa.
It was funny!


Who's laughing now, Birthday Boy???

PS, I love you.

I was just reminded of something I said in March.

Arglemarf. If you google it, my info pops up. That makes me more famous then, like Britney Spears. Or something.

In other household news, Andrew started his PT jobby today. Errr, wait. His first day was Saturday. At any rate, he's working tonight and instead of being home by 6, he should be walking through the door any day now.... I said any day now... I think Raven is so used to the routine, that this hiccup in the schedule has really thrown her off. Her day is pretty basic. I found this entry in her journal:
6:00am- Dad hits snooze
6:09am- Dad hits snooze again
6:18am- Mom pushes Dad out of bed and says "Time to get up!"
6:47am- Dad walks me down to the power lines and back. He talks about how tired he is the whole time.
7:19am- Dad looks at the clock as he burns his tongue on too-hot-coffee and realizes he should have left for work 10 minutes ago.
7:20am- Dad pats me on the head and tells me to be good, (duh, what else can I be?) leaves for work, Mom and I wave from the front porch.
7:20am- 5:50pm- Wait for Dad.
5:55pm- Bark at every car door slamming in a 5 mile radius in anticipation of Dad coming home. "Is that his car? Did I hear his radio?"
6:00pm- Welcome Dad home!


So she sat by the front door at 5:45. 6:00pm rolled around and she came back up to my office. By 7:30, she was barking at me and running to the front hall as if to say, "He's not home, we should send out a search party." And while I was trying to take a bubble bath between 8:30 and 9:15, she barked and paced and jumped and growled at every bird, bug, and neighbor passing by our front door. She was so antsy.

I know what you're thinking. Can your dog write in a journal? ;D

Human Resources

Is not very resourceful to humans.
Go figure.

Disgust

Pure and utter disgust. Today did not go the way I had hoped. But in a way, I came out on top. I stood up for something I believed in and still got kicked in the knees. Ahh, at least I stood up instead of taking it like a pansy.

Discuss

If you found out you were making HALF the money that other people around you make for doing the exact same job, at comparable success rates, what would you do?

A Whirlwind

A few weekends ago, we had our Cleveland Browns fans (gasp) neighbors over to watch the Ravens take on the Browns. They also brought a buddy for Raven. Sky and Raven are BFF's, you know.
It was a good game, but it was more fun to watch our dogs play together.



Here, Raven and Sky show us how they got their Indian names "Bumps-on-a-log"


Sometime between that game and today, I flew over to Maryland to surprise a friend for her 30th birthday. I actually called her on her real birthday, the day before the party and said "Happy Birthday! See you tomorrow!" So I kinda spoiled that suprise, but I did manage to shock 3 other friends who had no idea I was in town. Alisha has a chronic case of Babyphobia and my presence prompted her to grab hold of the nearest child and hang on for dear life. Hehehe...



Andrew and Nate before some much needed Bromance at the game on Sunday. Raven stayed behind, but she was so cute on game day with her Raven's bandana, so I made everyone pose. Nate was so thrilled.


And what's a dirt pile good for? Rolling in it! Exactly 72 hours after getting a good bath, she rolled in a bunch of dirt. Ahh well, she's washable.



WHOOOOOSH went September, October arrived much faster than I'd expected.

We're sickos here

Apparently, I brought home more than just Berger Cookies. It seems a nasty bug has invaded our home in the form of... The Common Cold.

Andrew: sneezes, coughs, hacks up a lung and sleeps 23.5 hours a day.
Me: my throat is so sore, I can't swallow, fever of 101ish which is high for me, even at perfect health my temp is around 96. I'm not coughing or sneezing, but I have a feeling the best is yet to come. I'm starting to wonder if we'll even make it back to MD this weekend.

The meds: DayQuil and NyQuil for Andrew, I'm more of a Tylenol/ Advil girl myself. Hot tea, soup, humidifier, Vicks VapoRub, I even splurged and bought tissues with lotion in them. We're also big fans of those shower steamers that look like an Alka Seltzer tablet and we've re-discovered our good friend "Mr. Microwave HeatWrap" He's wonderful.

I'd post pics of this hot mess we're in, but we both look like a tractor ran over us...


So to lighten the mood, this Howard County Fair Prize Winning Photographer happens to be my father-in-law.



Pretty cool, huh?