The Perfect Dog That Never Was...

I was going to write a post about my beautiful baby girl boasting to the whole world about her newly learned skills.  Instead, my husband told me to write up this story.

We are not dog people.  No, let me rephrase that, we will never be pet people.  For starters, Aaron is allergic to several types of animals.  The first time I met Aaron's family, I was struck by their love of pets especially dogs.  I was a little worried that Aaron would want to have 10 dogs, 15 cats, a bird and maybe a giant aquarium full of fish to top it all off.  I still remember that moment of joy when we discovered that we both shared a dislike for animals in general.  Sure we were ok with other people having and loving them, we just didn't feel the need to ever have any ourselves.  We've since decided that we might someday get some chickens for eggs and meat and possibly a dog if our children absolutely insist upon it.  However, it has to be a very specific dog.  Here is the list of qualifications for the perfect dog:

• Must be an outside dog
• Must only bark on appropriate occasions (i.e. someone is trying to attack our house)
• Must be well behaved
• Must require little attention and only want to be petted on its birthday
• It must never jump on us or try to bite or scratch us in any way
• It must never, ever chew up shoes or try to steal anything from the garage
• Preferably it would never shed or even poop

Ya, I think we're better off getting a robotic dog...well, at least I thought that until today.  Today is the day when I saw the perfect dog that cannot be.  

I was outside hanging clean diapers on the line to dry when I first saw it.  It was a black labrador. My first thought was, oh crap, I forgot to close the fence and now it will try to follow me around and make me pet it and possibly even attack me and give me rabies.  But it just looked at me.  I started to notice that there was white around its mouth and it walked with a slight limp.  Ah, it's an old dog.  It would never hurt me. No, don't think that way.  It probably just wants all your food and to be petted all the time.  The dog just looked at me.  It didn't try to come in the fence.  Finally, it just laid down in the yard and patiently looked at me. Look, it doesn't have a collar.  It is probably hungry.  Maybe...No, Lindsey then it will never leave.  The dog didn't bark, didn't whine, didn't try to jump on me.  It just looked at me with giant eyes that said, "Please love me." Maybe we could keep it.  It looks so nice and well behaved  It would just follow me around so patiently and so quietly like a little friend.  But dog food is so expensive.  The dog just continued to look at me pleading, "I don't want anything fancy, I just want to be loved."  Surely this old dog deserves some love in its old age.  It is not going to live for much longer and someone should have compassion on it.  I finished up the laundry and prepared to go inside.  The dog didn't come near and didn't make any noise.  It just looked at me, "Please, please."  As soon as I got in the house, I knew what I needed to do.  I sent Aaron a text saying, "Can I please have a dog?"

30 seconds later, my husband called me laughing and laughing.  He said that I could not have a dog and I could not touch the dog and I was to stay far away from the dog for fear of being bit or catching a disease.  Please, please, I begged him.  I love this dog I told him.  He just laughed more and repeated his instructions. And so the poor, old black labrador is doomed to a life of loveless vagrancy until it finally meets its maker.  

Monday Morning

So its the first Monday morning after a whole week of vacation.  I need tea.  Black tea.  No sugar and no milk.  Ok, so maybe the no milk part comes from the fact that our milk expired while we were on vacation and I haven't yet made it to the grocery store.
Oh ya, the grocery store.  If I go to the grocery store, then I'll have to actually cook a meal.  Hmm...I haven't done that in about 9 days.

Enough complaining.  I'm thankful that we got to go on vacation.  I'm thankful that we got to see family.  I'm thankful that I ate waaayyy too much food.  I'm thankful that Baby K is sleeping in which allowed me to take a shower, eat breakfast, drink tea, read my Bible and now surf the internet.  I'm thankful that Christmas is less than a month away.  And I'm thankful that we get to start our own Christmas traditions now that we have a real family of our own.

I've made a deal with myself: clean and unpack and then you can decorate for Christmas with the Christmas music blasting.  That is a deal I can live with.  So goodbye world.  I'm going to go do my work as quickly as possible so I can get to the good stuff.

Something Strange...

A couple of weeks ago, I was shocked to learn that my students (grades 8-12) do not remember 9/11.  They know that it happened but have no actual memories of the events.  They also had no clue why we invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.  Though on that matter, I'm not really sure either.  I don't think anybody is really sure why we did it other than to catch some terrorists and supposedly stop a nuclear war...

Ok, time to move on.  This week, I bought approximately 15 pounds of sweet potatoes.  They were on such a good sale at almost 1/4 of the price they normally are.  We love sweet potatoes.  What will we do with them?  Thanks for asking.  We will enjoy baked sweet potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes with couscous, sweet potato curry soup, and maybe some sweet potato hummus. The funny thing is that we never have the traditional "sweet potato souffle/casserole."  It weirds me out that most people only eat sweet potatoes on holidays and such.  So good.

My Little Big Girl

Guess who is 3 months old? 

On her due date.  Less than 48 hours before she was born.  As you can tell, she is ready for blast off!

Only a few days old and looking sleepy. 

All snuggly with Daddy at one month old. 

2 Months and perking up

3 Months and going strong

 Her favorite things to do: Hang out with daddy, have conversations, see the world, sleep, sleep and more sleeping!
Major problem: Throwing temper tantrums when she get's too tired. Whatever you do, don't miss nap time.
Successes: Sleeping through the night and falling asleep on her own without any major sleep training!  I'm loving it.  She is also working on holding up her head.

Something Fishy and I'm a Hater

Now to return to one of my favorite subjects: FOOD!

Right now Aaron and I are really into fish. Growing  up, my version of a good fish was something deep-fried, covered with tarter sauce, and tasting nothing like actual fish.  A month or so before Kira was born, Aaron requested fish.  Since he hardly ever requests anything, I felt that I had to oblige.  I scouted out the fish in the store and after a couple of weeks, I found some nice salmon on a super sale.  I looked up one of the top allrecipes recipes and took the plunge.  I warned Aaron, since he was grilling it for me, that if I disliked the fish, it was not his fault.  Fortunately, we both loved it.  Tonight, Aaron declared it his most favoritist dinner.  It is so easy, healthy and super yummy.  Check it out here.  I remember the last check up I had before Kira was born, I told my midwife that I hoped the baby wouldn't come the next day because I planned on having a super yummy fish dinner.  Kira was very obliging and waited an extra day.  I wouldn't swear by it, but I think these pictures were taken the day before Kira's birth .

Eating this fish won't make you as fat as I look.  I promise.

Aaron feels the need to savor each bite

A full belly is the way to any pregnant woman's heart.

Another favorite recipe is this one right here.  A friend brought this too us after Kira was born and I just about died from happiness especially when it was covering some yummy mashed potatoes.  Since I was dropping weight like crazy, I didn't have to worry about calories and could eat to my voracious heart's content.

Finally, I'm a hater...or more specifically, a food judger.  I confess that I judge people based on the food that they eat...or at least I used to.  I remember being in the grocery store line behind a guy who was obviously single.  All he was buying were Pringles, Mountain Dew, Wonder Bread and I think some bologna.  Gross.  As I said, I used to judge people...and then I got pregnant.  I just remember being in Wal-Mart and the only things in my shopping cart were literally macaroni and cheese, ramen noodle, graham crackers and some cereal.  At that moment, I realized I no longer had any basis for judging people.

In case your wondering, the pie in the pictures is a tomato basil pie.  It is so good that it deserves an entire post to itself. 

Another one of those days

Right now I seem to have a peculiar talent for doing stupid things.  I guess it helps to keep life interesting.
Usually on Sundays, I come home and scramble to get something ready for lunch as quickly as possible.  We don't usually get home until around 1 so we're always starving.  However, this past week, I was totally on top of it.  On Saturday, I tidied the house, cut up the pineapple.  On Sunday, I peeled, chopped and left the sweet potatoes sitting on the stove in water and I also made up some glaze for the ham.  We don't usually eat ham, but it was on sale at Kroger and I couldn't pass it up.  I've probably only baked a ham 3 times in my entire life.  And this wasn't no little baby ham; it was a giant 7 lb ham.  I'll admit it; I was pretty darn proud of myself.  I was so prepared for the Sabbath and we wouldn't have to rush around like crazy.  All we would have to do after church is put the finishing touches on everything.
Aaron had asked if we could possibly have someone over and we decided that we'd start by asking any visitors and, they said no, we'd ask the pastor's family. We were both excited at the prospect of sharing our fancy pants meal with someone.
About half-way to church, all of a sudden I let out a huge gasp. I left the ham in the fridge.  I suppose that pride must go before the fall because now we had no food to eat all except for pineapple and sweet potatoes.
Fortunately, my mom let us crash her house for lunch and our hinies were saved.  We were also blessed to get to have guests over on Monday night for our ham dinner which I did remember to put in the oven.

One of those days...

So yesterday I woke up with a headache and quickly decided that it was a coffee day.  I gave my little girl a bath and then put her down for a nap.  As soon as she woke up and got stuffed, we dashed out the door to the grocery store.  While in the second grocery store (yes, I always shop at at least two different stores if not more), I realized that she needed a diaper change.  It wasn't hard to figure this out.  The signs and sounds made it pretty obvious.  I headed to the back of the store where I discovered that she didn't just need a diaper change, she needed a whole outfit change if you catch my meaning.  So I stripped her down naked in the Wal-Mart bathroom all the while bemoaning the fact that she had just been so thoroughly cleaned.  Then I attempted to finish up shopping but the baby refused to be put back in her car seat.  Towards the end of my shopping excursion, Aaron called me on his lunch break.  I ended up trying to shop, hold my baby, push a cart, and talk on the phone to my husband.  We finally made it to the check out and, after waiting in line for a long time with a crying baby, we were done and out the door. By this point, I was tired and hungry and the baby was even more tired and hungry.  The only difference between us was that she felt free to voice her frustration in crying and I had to bravely hold it in since we were in a parking lot.  As I was loading up the car, I noticed a lonely cucumber hiding behind the diaper bag. Oh dear, I just stole a cucumber worth a whopping 48 cents.  I desperately looked around a for a Wal-Mart employee so that I could shove it into their arms saying, "Here's your stupid cucumber.  I didn't want it anyways."  Of course, there were none to be seen.  We trouped back inside where I paid for the cucumber with change including 18 pennies.
Next came the saga of the milk.  As I was leaving the parking lot, I remembered that I needed to go across the street to the CVS so I could buy some milk since it was a whopping $2 cheaper than at Wal-Mart.  I briefly contemplated attempting to feed the baby while in the back seat of the car but then I decided that I would prefer to listen to her scream.  As I was getting the baby out of the back of the car, I was surprised to discover that the person parked next to me had left their car running.  There wasn't anybody even inside of it.  How irresponsible, I thought.  I marched into the store and went straight to the coupon kiosk where you scan your CVS card to get extra point.  The only problem is that my card is on my key chain and...well...I couldn't find my key chain.  Oh dear, I must of left them on the back seat of the car as I got my baby out.  So we marched back outside.  All of a sudden, the wheels in my tired brain finally turned and I realized that I was the irresponsible adult who left the keys in the ignition and the car running.  Yep, that was me and not my parking spot neighbor.  So I bought my milk and brought my screaming baby home.
At home, I quickly brought in the groceries and threw the frozen items into the freezer before feeding my starving baby on the couch while eating the last of the chips.  After lunch, I discovered that my baby had had another small blow-out and so we went through an entirely new outfit.  Later in the afternoon, I happened to go outside to find my trunk still open.  Though in my defense, sometimes my trunk door pretends to be closed so it can fly open and catch me unawares.
This is just a day in the life of Lindsey.  Or maybe it is a day in the life of Lindsey on coffee.  This explains why I try not to drink coffee except on rare occasions.  Of course, I didn't mention the fact that I washed dirty diapers, did another load of laundry, washed dishes, made dinner, swept the floor, read a book, sanded a chair down, and painted three chairs.
Actually, as crazy as this day was, I thought it was hilarious.  I sent Aaron a text while he was at work and told him that I couldn't wait for him to get home so I could share my crazy life with him.  I love life including the crazy, funny days.