Puppy Update.. :)

Since I was struggling on what else to write about, I thought I’d just give a little update on ShNo.  Today is exactly two months since we brought the little guy home.

When we got ShNo, I couldn’t believe how big he was for an 8 week old puppy, and he weighed in at 10 lbs and barely reached my knee.  But, now, at 17 weeks, he’s tripled in size – at just over 30 lbs and reaches mid-thigh. 

He’s basically potty-trained, though he hasn’t learned to bark or come call us when he needs to go out – which has resulted in or two accidents when we were not paying attention or the door wasn’t left open.  Or if he’s left in the crate for longer than five or six hours (which we try not to do ever).

He sleeps through the night, and will even walk into his crate without having to be carried in there.

He can ‘sit’ and ‘lay down’ on command every time.

He can ‘shake a paw’.

He can ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ and wait till I say ‘ok’ to get his food, or treat, or walk through a door.

He knows his name – but chooses to ignore it sometimes.

He can ‘Drop It’ but only when the item in his possession is not a piece of clothing or a shoe – in which case he runs in the opposite direction.

He runs with his ears pulled back and his tail wagging a million miles a minute when he sees one of us.

He’s been the prime suspect in a few cases of shoe fatalities – one being a nice dress up heel I wore to a wedding just a few days before, the others being flip flops that he oh so casually destroyed.

And, while I can’t wait for the chewing stage to end, I’m already mourning the loss of my little itty bitty puppy, as he all-too quickly grows into a dog. 

 

We’re a sports household

Image via Wikipedia

I grew up in a home where the only sport worth watching was soccer (can you tell I’m Italian?).  Growing up sports was something that happened every four years.

In my home sports is now an everyday occurrence – we watch everything – well, except for basketball, cricket, and boxing.  SportsCentral is the default channel on our TV.

The big three are: football, hockey and curling.

Football is my favorite.

Hockey I like well enough.

Curling – I can’tstand…but, well, that’s just me. 

Hm… where was I going with this? Oh yes, my TV has been hijacked.

Do you know what I love about football?  That all games are limited to maximum two days in a week; during football season, I know not to make plans on all Sundays and most Thursdays, until playoff seasons.  Playoffs last a month, but again are limited to two days: Saturdays and Sundays.

Hockey, on the other hand, is always on.  The teams seem to play every second night – and we apparently watch games that our team isn’t
even playing in.  And, then playoffs come around – and that’s when the TV becomes completely hijacked.  For what seems like months.

On the bright side, hockey gives me guilt free laptop time from the comfort of my couch, with the game playing in the background and my husband sitting close by!  :)

And, plus, I’d take hockey over curling any day.

Are there any sports that drive you crazy?

Buying time

Wouldn’t that be great?  Go to the grocery store and pick up some extra time, sold in half-hour and hour increments.  You could pick up that extra hour to go to the gym, or a half-hour in the bath, or maybe, a few hours to escape into a book…

But, life doesn’t work that way. 

We all have the same 24 hours in a day… And everyday we either spend them wisely, or waste them.  Sometimes it’s unavoidable.. Other times the choices are up to us.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I spend my time.  Do I spend it wisely?

To be honest, probably not.  Like now… I could be cleaning.  I could be putting another load of laundry in.  I could be putting away the groceries from earlier.  I could be planning the Superbowl party that is only a week away.  But I’m not doing any of those things, am I?

I’m sitting on the couch, taking advantage of AMP’s work computer to blog and read blogs.  And generally being unproductive.

But, who is to say that this is unwise use of time? 

For me blogging is therapy.  It’s enjoyable.  It’s almost as good as reading a book.  So, if I enjoy it that much, then spending time doing it isn’t wasteful.  Right?  That’s what I’m choosing to believe.

Nevertheless if I’m going to accomplish any of my goals, I need to have a schedule.  I need to spend my time more efficiently.. going to the gym in the morning, instead of sleeping in…cleaning instead of checking Facebook for the umpteenth time.  And, maybe when I do that, I’ll find that I have more time for the fun stuff — like blogging and learning to Twitter properly, and reading all the awesome blogs that are sitting in my Google Reader each day waiting for me…

Guilt Gene

I’m not the type of person who meets women who don’t work (whether moms or not) and thinks, “What do they do with their time?”  I know that time has this funny habit of slipping away, and especially moms have their work cut out for them.  I try to be respectful of people’s time, their commitments and obligations.

So, why the hell can’t people have more respect for my time?

I work two days a week – the same two days every week. That means that three days of the week, I don’t trek into the office.  But that doesn’t mean I’m sitting at home with my feet up watching TV or reading a book all day.  I have plenty of things to do – like my 70 hours a month volunteer commitment, or cleaning my house, or going to the gym, or grocery shopping, or laundry, or the million other things that I could be doing.

But, let’s look at what happens on a typical day off:
My mom calls needing something, my dad texts me saying it’s been so long since he’s seen me that he needs a picture to remind him of what I look like, my brother calls wanting to know if I can help with some of his wedding stuff, my future sister-in-law texts me panicking that I haven’t printed off her wedding invites yet, my cousin needs help with the paperwork for her father’s company, the car needs to be brought in to be fixed, there’s dry-cleaning to be dropped off, AMP needs me to pick up something from the store, AMP needs something returned to the store, my grandparents are in town and need to be brought to a doctor, my aunt complains I never visit her anymore…

And, no, there’s very little exaggeration in that… That has actually happened on multiple occasions.

The problem is, I think I’ve inherited my mother’s ‘guilt gene’ – and not in the sense that I guilt people into doing things (though my mother is able to guilt me into doing a lot of things), but in that, I feel guilty saying no.  I will rearrange my plans and postpone what I want to, or should be, doing, to do all these things for other people.

I know AMP should take first place, and I try to do the things he wants and needs first.  After all, he’s been wonderful about not asking me to work more, even though we could use the money to pay down debt.  But, I have such a weakness when it comes to my family. 

I could be on the other side of town, and if my mom calls me asking if I can go pick up some bread for her, I’ll drop everything and do it.  

And, my dad does so much for me, that I feel incredibly guilty not doing things the few times he asks for something. 

But, the wedding thing is starting to drive me crazy.  My brother and his fiancée are getting married in 5 weeks.  Neither one of them seems incredibly into planning the wedding.  My sister-in-law(to-be)’s father has a heart condition and his health is a constant worry, and the mom has her hands full with that, and doesn’t seem to have much worries about the fact that her daughter’s wedding is 5 weeks away and they still haven’t figured out the décor, the flowers, and many other important details.

Which would be fine.  My response is, if they don’t care about putting the time into their wedding, that’s their problem.  Especially when my sister-in-law calls and asks me if I can do something wedding related and when I ask where she is, she says the beach.

Have I mentioned that we’re Italian though?  Have you ever been to an Italian wedding?  They are elaborate thought-out affairs.  Mine was relatively simple, but still took 10 months to plan, and lots of time and effort.  We had a 5 course seated dinner for 120 guests. 

My mom is determined that my brother’s wedding should be at least as nice as mine was.  I kept things simple, but thanks to my mom it was beautiful and elegant.  But that leaves my mom shouldering all the wedding planning responsibility, because if she doesn’t do it, no one will. 

And with my mom’s health (she has Multiple Sclerosis and a myriad of other health issues), her responsibilities for her sick parents, and her own life, she is becoming exhausted.  So, when she calls me asking me to help out with my brother’s wedding, I say yes, not for them, but for her.

So there goes some more of my time, whether it’s printing out and addressing invitations, or going with my mom to look at favors or decorating ideas, or helping throw the shower that the bride’s side should be responsible for, I’ll do it for my mom and to quiet the ‘guilt gene’.

And then, I’ll come home and make dinner, and clean the house, and do some laundry, and cringe that I missed going to the gym again…              

              And then I wonder why I feel exhausted all the time…

The Learning Curve

1)      Describe someone in your life you might not know as well as you think you know…   From Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop

The Learning Curve

AMP and I have been married 2 years and 4 months.  We started dating 5 years ago summer/fall.  I like to think that after that amount of time, I know him well.

And I do.  I can rattle off any number of random facts, likes and dislikes.  I can tell you how he’ll react or respond in most situations.  But, every day I seem to learn something new about my husband.  That’s normal I guess.  After all, what else is a lifetime for if not to learn more about each other and grow together as a couple? 

When we got married, it was the first time we lived together and spent the night together.  It was strange, and absolutely wonderful, to wake up next to him.  It was interesting to learn his quirks and idiosyncrasies.  How was I to know that shampoo bottles in the shower would make him cringe?  Or that he would rather have dishes on the counter than piled in the sink?  It was a learning process.  We learned what would make each other tick, and what we had to compromise on.  We learned to live with each other’s quirks and idiosyncrasies. And we’re still learning.

I love learning new things about him.  I think we covered all the major, life changing, deal breaking details while we were dating.  I know how he feels about marriage and how he abhors cheating.  I know that he’d rather not have children.  I know that he needs a certain amount of alone time.

I’m talking about the little details.  The details of his childhood; the opinions I never realized he held; the nuances of his feelings and thoughts. 

While watching The Soloist a few weeks ago, I learned that AMP played the cello for two years. 

While visiting with my mother-in-law, I learned that he’s been a morning person since birth basically.  She told me that they knew it was time to teach him how to tell time when he started bringing her coffee at 4 a.m.

While driving the other day, I learned more about his past – the girls I’d rather didn’t exist, but that I can’t help being curious about.  I learned more about his feelings about his relationship with his father.  I learned how these things have made a difference in his life, his emotions and his personality.

AMP is still the same person I fell in love with. 

The things I learn just add to that person – to the person I chose to spend the rest of my life with.

It helps me to understand him better. 

And it makes me love him more each day.

30

This post is inspired by prompt #4 at Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop.  I may have tweaked it a little from it’s original title, ’30 Things I Vow to Do This Summer’ to ‘ 30 Things I Want to Happen This Summer.’  I’m surprised I managed to come up with so many.. I’ll have to come back at the end of summer and see how many (if any!) are accomplished.. They are in no particular order except for no. 1 – which is the most important to me right now! lol.

1.       Most importantly: have the basement finished, and have life return to wonderful normalcy and just the two of us

2.       Finish my hour quota!

3.       Take two weeks off just to relax

4.       Complete all the remaining letters in the 2010 A-Z Reading Challenge

5.       Organize the closet – Set up the shelves and have it look beautiful

6.       Work on and finish the wedding photo-book

7.       Write story to go along with photo-book

8.       Lose the remaining 14 lbs I want to lose

9.       Spend time with my niece once she gets back from Australia

10.    Waste whole days sitting at the beach reading

11.    Decorate!!  Put up pictures, paintings, clocks, drapes

12.    Grow basil – and have it live for more than a week

13.    Stain front porch

14.    Start a new routine of waking up at 6:30 every morning

15.    Go to the gym 4x a week or more

16.    Drink lots of water and eat fresh fruits and vegetables

17.    Write more – it seems like it gets put on the back burner more often than not

18.    Spend more time with my family as a couple

19.    Start entertaining

20.    Begin thinking about and organizing AMP’s Grad Party

21.    Keep in touch with family overseas

22.    Have a cleaning routine where I spend 20 minutes a day cleaning and no more than that!  No major clean-up days all summer!

23.    Do outdoor sports

24.    Learn outdoor sports

25.    Start planning next spring’s garden

26.    Water my hanging baskets so they don’t die before July

27.    De-clutter before September

28.    Go camping with AMP’s family

29.    Make one new ‘close’ friend

30.    Spend time with the friends I never get to see

A Day in the Life of…

A Day in the Life of Undomestic

5:55 – Ugh… I hate this stupid alarm… Is AMP going to turn it off?  Yes, it’s off!  Ten more minutes of sleep, and then I’ll get up and go to the gym.

6:45 – Mm… ‘No, can’t see how you look from here’, ‘Yes, that’s clean’, ‘No, I won’t forget to feed the fish’, ‘Love you too, have a good day.’  Should get out of bed and go to the gym.  Mm… Maybe in 5 minutes

8:00 – Crap!  It’s 8.  Have to run!  In the shower – shave or don’t shave?  It’s sunny out… Definitely shave.  Stupid hair… Make up?  Definitely need it this morning… Hurry!

8:30 – Oops, that took longer.  Need to be out the door soon.  Wait!  Fish!  Need to feed them… No fish floating at the top = good day.  House is a disaster.  Need to set better rules for everyone about picking up after themselves.  Wait, I think I left that there…  Remember not to yell at boys!  Ask for help nicely.  So tired.  Breakfast?  Nothing quick.  Need to buy granola bars.  Forgot to pack a lunch.  Remember for tomorrow.

9:00 – Wow.  Actually made it on time. 

2:00 – Should go home and clean.  Wait, mom needs something.  ‘Yup, be right there.’  Re-routing.  Will only take half-an-hour, an hour at most.  Will be at the gym by 3, home by 4, Clean and have dinner on the table at exactly 5:30.  Make lasagna tonight?  With fresh bread and a salad?  And my house will be spotless! 

3:30 – Crap! Still here.  Should get going.  Need to go to the gym.  ‘Yup, I can wait a couple more minutes, but then I have to go.’

4:30 – AMP wants to be picked up.  It’s pouring, I feel bad making him wait for the bus.  Wasn’t it sunny earlier?  Crap!  Got nothing done today.  No gym!  Never going to fit into that dress.  Will go after dinner.  And then clean.  Oops, forgot to defrost the ground beef for the lasagna….

5:45 – Why does that stupid smoke detector have to go off every time I cook?!?!  Nothing is on fire!  Oh wait… The chicken nuggets are getting burnt…

6:15 – Ok, now to the gym?  In 15 minutes, when this show is done.

7:00 – Dilemma – Watch movie with AMP or clean?  AMP and movie definitely wins!  Maybe fold laundry during the movie? Does that count as productive and/or domestic?  No gym today.  Again.

9:45 – So tired.  Should go to bed and get up early tomorrow.  And then I can clean, go to the gym.  ‘Good night love.’ ‘Sure, I’ll stay and cuddle while you play video games. But only for a few minutes.’

10:30 – In bed.  Read?  Maybe a few pages – I want to know what happens next.  Will definitely be asleep by 11.

11:45 – Lights off!  So tired.  Wait… Wasn’t I supposed to make lunches for tomorrow?  Crap!  Maybe I’ll get up early tomorrow.

Next day
5:55 – Ugh… I hate this stupid alarm… Is AMP going to turn it off?  Yes, it’s off!  Ten more minutes of sleep, and then I’ll get up and go to the gym.

6:45 – Mm… ‘No, I won’t forget to feed the fish’, ‘Love you too, have a good day.’  Should get out of bed and go to the gym.  Mm… Maybe in 5 minutes

8:00 – Crap!  It’s 8.  Have to run!  In the shower.  Stupid hair… Make up?  Definitely need it this morning… Hurry!  Haven’t made lunch yet!  Run, Undomestic, Run!

See a pattern?  I’m completely incapable of managing my time wisely.  I tend to allow myself to be distracted.  I have the best of intentions. But, I want to make everyone happy… I want to be the perfect daughter who is always available when her parents need her.  I want to be the perfect wife – with dinner on the table and a spotless house when AMP gets home, as a thank you for only having to work 2 days a week.  I want to make a list each day and cross every item off, and not have them carry on for weeks.  I want to get to the gym 4x a week, and not have it interfere with the time I set aside to spend with AMP.  I want there to only ever be one load of laundry to be done, the powder room bathroom always in pristine condition, the living room and kitchen ‘show-home’ clean so I’m not embarrassed if anyone decides to stop by.

I want more time…but I’m afraid that I’ll squander it.  I need to be more organized.  I need to make the most of the time I have.  And I need to use it wisely!

 

This post is inspired by prompt no. 5: Time, at Sleep is For the Weak’s Writing Workshop.

Less & More

Yes, I’m like everyone else.  I’m low on time.  And unlike most of the blogs I follow, I’m not a mother of one, never mind 2 or 3 or more.  You would think that I’d have more time.  But I do not.  I am continuously struggling to balance my life, to make time for me, for my goals and pursuits.

This month I am succeeding.  I started my Get Fit Challenge.  I’ve been making time for myself to eat healthy. I’ve been making time to go to the gym at least 4x a week.  I’m making time to accomplish my goal – 19 lbs and 12 inches to lose.  Two weeks in and I’m already down 5 lbs and 2 inches – only 14 and 10 to go.

It made it easier that my parents were away for a few days.  I love them dearly and visit them at least 3x a week, which while lovely, takes hours out of my day.  Often, I go with the intention of staying half-an-hour and then making my way to the gym or home to clean or run errands.  But usually nothing else gets done and I’m there till A will be home from work, so I have to rush around.   And then there are other relatives who I really should go visit on a regular basis – but my time is limited and there’s only one of me to go around. 

But, along the theme of more and less, I can think of a few more:

Less debt, more savings

Less gossipers, more friends

Less tears, more smiles

Less writer’s block, more blogging 

Less waiting, more living!

I think that last one is really important.  I feel like I’m always waiting for something.  I waited for A to propose, I waited for the wedding, I waited till we were ready to buy a house.  Now I’m waiting for A to be ready to have kids – if that ever happens.  But, maybe, instead of waiting I should spend more time just living.  Instead of waiting to have a child, spend more time enjoying just being a couple without any pressure to procreate.

There’s always a list of things we want more of or less of.  If I find more time to myself to get things done, maybe I’ll be more relaxed and less rushed, less of a chicken running around with my head cut off.
 

This post inspired Sleep is For the Weak’s Writing Workshop prompt # 5 – What do you need to do more of?  What do you need to do less of?

Too many boys…

There seems to be way too many boys in my house at any given moment.  As far as I knew, I had only agreed to live with one.. Now there’s 2 of the adult variety.  Plus the ones who randomly visit and abduct my TV for video gaming purposes.

I just want to have the house to myself again.  Well, with A, of course.  Even though at the moment I’m truly frustrated.

This morning he had the gall to be upset at my comment about the “hours he spends on video games.”  His reaction indicated he thought the term “hours” was ludicrous.  This after staying up till 1 am last night to play with his brother and mine and spending at least 2 hours playing this morning.  Oh, and he started playing again with the arrival of his friend a couple hours ago.  So clearly I was completely wrong in my statement…

And he wonders why I’m upset… I’m ready for some of the quiet evenings we spent the two of us… Not this new bother of always having someone else about.  If this is the way it is to be, I might as well have a child now, seeing as he/she could not interrupt A & my time together any more than the rest of the male species that surround me.

the undomestic housewife