Hmm...

I know not a lot of people read this, but I wanted to share this. Please go read about Keliahs journey to her new family! They are raising money to adopt her from China... I hope they reach their goal soon.
http://www.mattmandi.blogspot.com/

MJ says "I'm not a boy."

I mean, I realize, shes a baby, she has no hair (she cant help it, stop laughing!) But seriously? Everytime she wears that hoodie, someone asks me if shes a boy?! I dont understand, how many boys do you see wearing a yellow shirt with a hot pink car on it? C'mon people. If you dont know if the baby has a weewee or a hooha, then just dont worry about it. I wont be heartbroken if you dont tell me how cute "she" is... just dont say anything and move on. Or I will punch your face.

Well what do you expect me to bitch about now that I'm a jobless hobo? Ok maybe I'm not a hobo, but I am jobless. Can you tell how tore up about it I am? It was only the best decision I've ever made. But I'm not sure about this whole SAHM thing... I need income, I dont feel right buying Matts Christmas gift with "his" money (I know its my damn money, but humor me)... any other moms feel this way?

You are lucky we're related.

Sleeping in? Thing of the past. Slug was such a good boy - he loved sleeping. MJ? Not so much. If I'm tired, shes wide awake. She is a pretty good baby - but as I stood over her crib, sticking the pacifier in her mouth ev.ery.time. she accidently knocked it out with her wild monkey hands... I thought , she is lucky we are related... if we werent, I would leave her in a cart at wal-mart. That is what my parents always told my sister when she was being bad. They had concocted this big , and mentally scarring story about how she was actually raised by albino aborigines until she was 2 and then they left her in a shopping cart at wal-mart because she was bad. They always threatened to take her back and leave her in another cart so that someone else would take her. Nothing like threatening your kid with abandonment. But the way I see it, at least they took a break from hitting the bong to make up a story to tell her, am I right?

I showered at a camp ground.

I feel dirty just typing it. After countless showers at my inlaws, we were both feeling like we were imposing so we decided to go to the "brand new camp showers". Right...well... it didn't go as I had envisioned. I never realize how many ocd tendencies I have until I'm hurled into a situation that makes me tick. They were not scummy and dirty or anything, but I just couldn't feel comfortable. I kept praying to God that no part of my body, my clothes, or my belongings would touch anything in there. I carefully undressed while keeping my flip flops on so that my feet wouldn't touch the floor. The water would just not get hot enough to kill the germs in there. I know I am a psycho. The only thing that got me through was writing a pretend letter in my head to the contractor working on our remodel. I went through all the details on how if I had to shower anywhere else again I was going to knit a blanket made of his entrails for my baby. I am happy to report that I now have a functioning shower in my house! Woo! Hopefully the rest will be done soon... can you imagine how crazy I'm going to be when I have to go without a toilet?

Long time no see...

I feel like I've floated through the last few weeks, just for the record - I miss my Slug horribly.

On a lighter note, I've continued to wake up every day - keep on keeping on - and enjoy an uneventful and actually pleasant pregnancy. So I'm good.

Now for some things that piss me off - bathroom remodeling. Oh wait , that should have been a list?

Bathroom remodeling
The sound of drills and hammers at 7 am on my day off

Oh yay, I get to deal with both of those again tomorrow. Our bathroom will be amazing when its done, but for now it feels like it will never be done. The first comment on the time line was that it would take 2-3 days. Well that was a big fat lie. I'm pretty sure we are on day 5 now, that includes Saturday and Sunday... and I am still pissing with no door or wall on my bathroom. I never thought I had a shy bladder until now. I also enjoyed my first shower at my inlaws house today. If the contractor doesnt have the tub and shower installed by tomorrow, I will kill him.

He's actually doing a really good job, he cant help it that our local home improvement store - I dont want to step on any toes... but think big, orange, and not Lowes - cant pull their head out of their ass and deliver things on time. All together its just a frustrating experience so far and I'm ready to poop behind a closed door please.

Slug and Me

I met the love of my life back in 2004. Matt and I saw an ad in the paper and went to "just look" on a whim... about an hour later I was calling my dad begging for $1000 to buy a puppy. My dad said that if I would buy him a Harley, he'd buy me the puppy... I agreed and went to pick out my new friend. The first round of "just looking" the breeders didn't want to get the puppies out to play, I forget the reason, but anyway - I just had to look at them all in a playpen and kind of decide which one I liked. They were all fat little butterballs of wrinkles, how do you decide? I knew I wanted a boy so that narrowed it down. I had my eye on a certain puppy that later that evening wanted nothing to do with me. They let them out so we could watch them play and see how they reacted to us. We knew Slug was the one when he went over and intentionally knocked over the breeders beer and then licked it all up off the ground. I loved him because he was fat and wrinkly, Matt loved him because he made me happy, and he had a white marking in the shape of a "championship belt".

He was the perfect pet, he hardly ever had accidents in the house from the first day we had him. I told Matt that I wanted a pet that would play with toys... none of my other dogs were interested in balls, or squeaky toys. Slug loved toys. He would play with anything ... and I mean anything! His favorite toys turned out to be his rubber duck, his squeaky crab and elephant, and most recently, the water bottle toy. The crab was hands down the favorite. We could say "Slug get your crab" and he would go searching for it. He was really an amazing dog all around - he knew when I was happy, he knew when I was sad. He was my shoulder to cry on when my dad passed away in 2005, he also listened to every little mumbled gripe I had when Matt and I would argue.

Slug was always pretty active for his breed, everyone expected him to be lazy... and it almost seemed like he was only lazy for a short period when he was really young. He loved fetching his toy and then not giving it back right away, running through the grass, and sunbathing. Up until recently we had not had to deal with very many major health issues. He always had some allergy problems and chronic ear infections, but after a quick trip to the vet he was usually back to his old self pretty quickly. In April I noticed one night that he seemed like he was having trouble urinating - after an emergency trip to the vet, we learned that he had stones in his bladder and urethra. He went through an emergency surgery and barely came out of the anesthesia. We brought him home a sleepless week later and vowed that as soon as he was healed we'd go to petco.

A few days later, he seemed like he was feeling good, so off to Petco we went.. Slug picked out his new water bottle toy, thats shaped like a snake but you put an empty bottle inside and then they can chew on it and it makes a ton of noise.... good stuff. As soon as he found it he grabbed it and headed for the door. We stopped him to let a woman tell us how cute he was, and then Matt took him to the side while I paid for his new toys. We promised another trip there soon, but we never made it.

I noticed again that Slug was having trouble urinating and I felt like I had swallowed a brick. The vet had warned us that the stones would probably come back, but we didnt talk much about what that meant. We had been feeding Slug only his prescription food, with an occasional (vet approved) carrot for a treat. We thought the food was doing its job to keep the stones away. I took Slug back to the vet, praying it was an easy fix. The vet checked him out and told me that Slug was completely blocked again with stones, they had moved down into his urethra again and I only had a few options. The options were to either do the surgery again, risk the anesthesia issues - and Slug might have a month until the stones would be back making him sick and miserable again. That would be the last surgery he could have, when the stones came back again (and he assured us they would) then there would be too much scar tissue to operate again. Our other option was to take him home and say goodbye, and bring him back in the morning to be sent to Rainbow Bridge.

I felt like I didnt have much of a decision, why put my poor baby through the stress of surgery, with the possibility that he'd not wake up from it... only to say goodbye in a few weeks? While one side of me was saying "Yeah but one month is better than one night!" I knew in my heart that I would only be doing that for myself, to selfishly hold on to him for a little while longer. I brought Slug home and we called all the people that were very close to him. We went and visited my sister, my granny, and then we came home and people came over to see him, pet him, say goodbye. I wouldn't believe how many of our friends were very sad and came over right away to see Slug. I just couldn't stop crying, knowing what was going to happen. We tried to feed him some junk that we had been denying him for the past few months, but he was already sick and didn't want anything. He just kept trying to pee and he couldn't pass any urine at all. He went downhill so quickly I was shocked, I had planned on holding him in the bed all night - but that afternoon I knew I couldn't do that to him.

Matt called another vet, just for another opinion - just hoping that they would say "Oh yeah, we just got this new magic medicine, come right in we'll fix him up!" but we got the exact same report from her.

Slug and I went to lay in the big bed while Matt called our vet. I laid and stared into his big eyes... petting his back and telling him how much I love him. He just laid there and stared back, telling me how much he loved me. Matt told the vet that he was declining quickly - and he told us he'd come to the office that evening and call when he was on his way. That left us not really knowing how long we had... so I just tried to lay there forever.

The vet called back some time later and said he'd meet us in ten minutes. We took Slug and loaded him in the back seat of the truck and took him to the office. I got in the back seat, pulled his face down eye to eye with me and said "I love you more than anything". Then we went inside, we told him he was going to get a shot and then he'd feel much better... and we didn't lie. Matt put him on the table told him he was a good boy, and it was all over within seconds, he just went to sleep.

This has been the hardest time of my life. I'm not sure if its magnified because I'm pregnant and hormonal - but I'm pretty sure its just a life changing event. A day hasn't passed in a week and a half since we said goodbye that we havent cried, and recalled memories of our special guy. Every part of my day reminds me of Slug and I have to choke back the tears. I still expect to hear him walking through the house, or squeaking a favorite toy... I cant stand this house without him.

For now there's a framed picture on the table, so that he can still beg every time we eat - there's another right beside my bed where he liked to sleep - but pictures aren't helping. I'm trying to look ahead, but for now I just want to look in the past, when I was unbelievably happy with the best dog in the world.

Whats wrong with me?!

I woke up from a nightmare this morning... and then I was disappointed that I didnt get to "see what happened". WTF? I'm pretty sure the bad guy broke in and clobbered my brain out with a box of morphine. Maybe I should explain? I work in a pharmacy... in that pharmacy we have a "narcotic vault" which is a small room where we store narcotics in a big computerized safe. In my dream, when the bad guy came in to the pharmacy and started killing everyone, I ran into the vault to hide... but he saw me... last I checked, I was pushed up against the door trying to keep him out and he was trying to find a way in. Thank you unborn child for providing me with all these crazy ass dreams. I swear I have at least 2 crazy dreams a night - and they are all so weird that I remember them.

I bought a new camera! Now just the waiting game on when it will actually be here... of course I kind of wanted it for a fight we might go to tomorrow night, and now it should be shipped on Monday. Thats perfect. I cant wait for it to get here so I can take pictures of everything. Not like I dont already have a camera, but since this one has been ordered the other one is getting the shaft, I refuse to pick it up again. Unless someone cool shows up unexpected and they want their picture taken with me... but that is the only reason! Or maybe if I see something cool.

Now off to enjoy my day off, rolling around in a mountain of dirty laundry... be jealous.