Man's (and Woman's) Best Friend

As many of you may know, Matt and I are dog lovers. We rescued our dog, Grady, from a shelter when we lived in Texas. Immediately, I thought it would be fun for Grady to have a friend. For a short time we had another dog, but unfortunatly it didn't work out. So we have been talking about getting another dog sometime soon. At first we decided to wait until we moved to Ohio to avoid the stress of a big move. Then, once we were in our rental house, we wanted to get another dog but weren't allowed in our lease agreement. Now that we have our own house and are getting settled in, we thought we would start to look around at the shetlers in the area to see if they had any puppies.

 Grady at the park

 

Grady taking over our bed

 

I have been looking periodically in the past and noticed that not too many puppies come through the shelters. And the ones that do come through are usually adopted very quickly. So I thought the process would take some time to find the right puppy for us. However, I looked at all the shelter's websites the other night and found one that had three female husky/setter mix puppies up for adoption!

 

I was so excited that I emailed the shelter right away and wanted to come out the next day to see them and potentially adopt one. But, apparently there is more red tape to go through to adopt form certain shelters than others. I did not realize that I would have to submit an application and be approved before allowed to adopt a puppy. I think this is a good idea to make sure all dogs go to a good home, but I'm not used to this process and hate playing the waiting game.

 

Either way, I started filling out the application: Do you own or rent your home? Do you have a fenced-in yard? Do you have other pets? What are the names of your pets? Who is your vet? Do you have children? Do all family members agree to have a pet? Yikes! This process was starting to stress me out! I started to feel like my ability to raise a dog was on trial and I started doubting my ability to effectively potty train a new puppy, let alone remember all those vet appointments, heart worm pills, grooming schedules, and exercise regimens. Hmmm.....what am I going to be like when we have children? Oh well, I'll figure that out when the time comes. :)

 

So I made a trip out to the shelter to see the puppies. The people were really nice and asked me a few questions, then let me play with the puppies. They let me pick my favorite one and put it down on my application. They said they would have to check my vet reference and would let me know soon if my application was accepted. Wow, that was easier than I thought. But when are they going to let me know? The suspense is killing me! After seeing the puppies it was hard to leave; they were so darn cute with their floppy ears, and wagging tails, and pointy sharp teeth.

 

This is the one I picked out. This picture was taken from their website.

 

And now we wait.

 







Privilege

To think about where I was in my life one year ago is just crazy. I don't know that I can even process all of the changes and how every detail has impacted my life in some way. Last year at this time I was living in Texas and working on my internship so that I could graduate. I still had a few months of hard work before the end of the school year. In that time I was working on planning our wedding and we were trying to make ends meet financially. I was starting to apply for jobs in Ohio and had no idea of what my future held or what my life was going to look like.

Now, I am living in Ohio, Matt and I are married, we just bought a house, and we are working on fixing up things around our place to make it our own. We are both working full-time as school psychologists in the same district and have so many responsibilities, that I forget what my life looked like only one year ago. If you would have told me that I would be spending hours picking out new paint colors and trying to figure out how to paint 14 foot walls (which is a puzzle in itself) I would not have believed you. I do know that it took a lot of hard work to get where we are today, but it was also a lot of luck. We were very lucky that we were hired by the same district at the same time and we were very fortunate to find a rental home so quickly. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to graduate school and to move to Texas just because we thought it would be fun.

I am so glad that we did move to Texas and I would not trade it for the world, although it caused a lot of stress and I know it would have been easier if we went to graduate school in Ohio, it was worth it. Now that we are back in Ohio and getting settled into our house, I am reminded of the road we took to get here. We had a lot of support from our family and friends. And even though we have stressful jobs and I doubt myself at times, we are fortunate to have jobs. And we are fortunate to afford a nice house and simple luxuries that others do not have. I am reminded by this every day but many times I take it for granted. I get caught up in my own life and my own troubles and I forget that I am privileged to have the opportunities that have shaped who I am today. I was able to go to college and graduate school, to move across the country, to have a beautiful wedding, to have a reliable job, and to have a loving family and many friends.

Even just thinking of how far I have come from one year ago, I realize that it was a difficult battle to get where I am. But I am privileged to have that battle, because so many never have the opportunity to go to college, graduate school, or move across the country. Yes, my experiences have shaped who I am but sometimes I need to remind myself that I am lucky.

Movin' and Groovin'

January 21st, 2013

I promised myself that I would be better about writing my blog this year! The past few months have provided numerous ups and downs in our crazy life. To shortly recap, we have been working full time (this has contributed most to our high stress levels) and looking for a new house to buy. We found a house we LOVED in late October/early November and put in an offer. After a short negotiation period, our offer was accepted and we just moved in last weekend! (With the help of a few of our amazing friends.)

 

our house

So now we are trying to unpack the mass chaos and find some order in our lives. When we received possession of our house, we planned on moving in slowly in order to fix up some of the things in the house. We wanted to get in and paint a few rooms, while moving smaller boxes of things in order to make the move go more smoothly. Well. . . . .we are not good planners and it took us way longer than expected to paint, therefore, nothing in our rental home was put in boxes. We recruited a few of our friends for a particular weekend to help us move, so we had to light a fire under our butts to get us moving. We starting packing 4 days before the big move. When our friends arrived, most of our rental home was still unpacked. I am sure our friends loved our lack of organizational skills. Especially when I started telling every one to shove things in random boxes and not to worry about labeling anything. It all worked out and everything was packed and moved in one day. I had to go back to the rental house the next day to clean up and pick up a few odds and ends. So all in all, our move was a huge success. Even if every one was a little on edge by the end of the day. :)

 our friends in our crawl space

Now we are in our new house and finally getting around to finding all of our belongings. I love opening the random boxes to find my blender next to a box of tampons. It's great fun! Yesterday I FINALLY found all of our kitchen stuff and plan on going to the grocery store so we can start to eat more than fast food everyday. We were starting to run out of options. Our dinner decisions started to sound like this, "Well hunny, what do you want to eat tonight? Wendy's....again, McDonald's .....again, or should we just pick up something from the gas station? Gas station sounds good!" We are pathetic!

 our piles of boxes

We also bought a gym membership the beginning of January when they have all those deals like... "Join today and we'll throw in a free month's membership, with a free t-shirt, and a side of grueling pain and agony, paired with guilt for being suckered into a year membership and never setting foot into the gym!" We were all about the guilt because we have not yet set food in the gym. Actually it was a really good deal.... you paid $3 for the first month and then had to sign your life away to commit to a membership for an entire year. Matt and I are overachievers, so we went with the two-year membership that claims to be cheaper in the long run. We probably need to start thinking about actually going to the gym.

Well... I am headed out in the bitter cold to go to the gym and the grocery store. It is sooo cold here right now! I think the temperature is 17 degrees but with the wind chill it feels like -2 degrees! I am kind of hoping for a "cold" day off school tomorrow. Just one of the perks of living in Ohio. I am still not quite adjusted to the cold from living in Texas for three years, but if anything will get me adjusted quickly it will be this weeks weather forecast!