Water Weekend

We had quite an eventful weekend around this household.  Saturday started with rain.  Lots of it.  We had planned to take our puppies to the Woodland Park Dog Paddle first thing, but it was cold and rainy and I opted for a little additional sleep instead. A couple hours later and several episodes of Properties Brothers, husband and I finally got off our asses and went for a run.  The temperature was perfect! 

I had been excited for weeks about taking our dogs to the dog paddle and wearing them out.  Sawyer loves the water and Jax had never been so I was anxious to see how he would react.  For those of you who don't know what the dog paddle is, it is something they do right before they drain the pool for the season.  They throw hundreds of tennis balls in and let all the dogs come and swim and play until their tongues fall off.  Or until their owners get tired of getting the wet "shake off" from strange dogs. 

As soon as we walked in the gate and let the monsters off their leashes, Sawyer immediately ran toward the pool where all the shiny tennis balls were.  Jax immediately ran as far away from us as he could and towards the nearest dog who would let him sniff its ass.  That's pretty much where he stayed for the hour we were there, with the exception of when we threw him into the pool.  That went over like a fart in church.  Jax gave us a scathing look, climbed out, and wouldn't come near us the rest of the afternoon.  Sawyer, on the other hand, swam for an hour straight, sometimes with 2 tennis balls in his mouth.

As you can see, a good time was had by all...plus, there was the added bonus of smelling like "wet dog" for the next 2 hours as well! 

After an eventful Saturday at the dog park and hanging with old friends in Louisville on Saturday night, I was anxious to get home on Sunday morning at R-E-L-A-X.  I had big plans for grocery shopping, a new dinner recipe, and to try out my new stand mixer from Williams Sonoma...all followed by a serious nap.  Well, the universe laughed at my plans, and after getting home at about 11:00am on Sunday and starting my chores, this happened:

That, friends, is what I like to call "a problem with the garbage disposal".  I cleaned out the fridge and sent some old food down the grinder after I had started the dishwasher.  No big deal, right?  I mean, it's not like I put egg shells or chicken bones down there.  Of course my immediate reaction was to continue to grind until it went down.  Strangely, that did not work.  I let it be for a couple hours while I mopped the floor and cleaned all the dog towels we had taken to the dog paddle on Saturday, then I consulted the ol' Google search engine for the answer to my problem.  Clearly, it was drano and a plunger.  Off to the store I went. 

I returned armed with groceries for the week and a renewed confidence in my plumbing skills.  On the way home I had even told my brother, "I'm on my way home to make the garbage disposal my bitch!"  Yeah...those words happened. 

After drano-maxx, and a plunger, this was the end result:

Time to consult google again.  Guess what I learned...pasta is bad for garbage disposals.  Who knew?  I thought back to the week-old fettuccine I shoved down there mere minutes before this nonsense occurred.  There was only one thing to do, and it involved a wrench.

I finally called husband and let him know what was going on in our kitchen.  "I think I need to open up this P-shaped pipe" I said.  He told me to get a big bucket and put it under the pipe because as soon as I removed it, water would come out.  We agreed that the 5 gallon bucket in the garage would be fine.  We were wrong.  I had the pipe unscrewed for exactly half a second (long enough to see that it was full of pasta) before I was surrounded by water.  Dirty, congealed, garbage disposal, old food, nasty, water.  I literally blinked and the water from the sinks were on the floor...the bucket was completely full and so was the kitchen.  {Insert panic here}.  I got my wits about me long enough to remember the stack of freshly cleaned towels in the laundry room and I went to town cleaning up the smelly mess.  The good news was that the sinks were empty and the pipes were now clean.

I think we can all agree on this one that even though I put the pasta down the disposal, this is clearly my husband's fault.  You with me?

An hour after this water chaos ensued, I mopped the floors for the second time that day and washed the towels for the second time as well.  By 4:00pm I was exhausted, but I'll be damned if I wasn't going to break in my stand mixer!  I made Apple Cinnamon muffins for us for the week, and they were delicious.  So delicious in fact that 2 of them went missing after leaving them alone to cool with the dogs.

So, a couple things we learned this weekend...Jax hates water, I hate garbage disposal water, I'm a muffin-baking goddess, and a master plumber. 

If You Really Knew Me - A Guest Post from the Boy

I had been mulling around with the idea of having the boy do a little guest post, and thought it would be perfect for him to do his own version of the "If You Really Knew Me" theme that many of my fellow bloggers have been participating in.  I originally saw this on Kelly's blog, and I think Kelly saw it somewhere else.  Regardless...it was a cute idea and I couldn't pass it up!  So without further ado, here is what my husband wrote (verbatim)...

1

If you really knew Taryn you would know that she really loves our dogs.  She calls them our furry children.  And she means it. 

 

 

 

 

2

If you really knew Taryn, she is really cute when she doesn't even know it.  Example: when we are relaxing on the couch at the end of the night, she looks at at me with her glasses on the tip of her nose, sweatpants and old t-shirt on wrapped up in a blanket playing on her laptop.  She looks at me and wonders why I can't stop staring at her.

 

 

 

3

If you really knew Taryn, you would know that she is an all caring all loving person.  She has a wall that you have to get around but its only a test/challenge to see if your up to it. 

 

 

 

4

If you really knew Taryn, she loves the dumbest shows.  I came home the other night to her watching Laguna Beach, which if you're not familiar "it" would be a rerun of a reality tv show from 2003.  I know I am shaking my head also. 

 

 

5

If you really knew Taryn, she is a major planner. She plans out her days, vacations, and holidays.  She is always listens to what everyone wants to do, but leave the fine details to her.

 

 

 

6

If you really knew Taryn, she always gives the most thought out gifts, the most well written birthday cards and everyone looks forward to her presents. 

 

 

 

 

7

If you really knew Taryn, you would know she loves to write. Writing for Taryn is her therapy session, and a chance for her to get things off her chest.  She has been given a gift to creatively put down in words her thoughts.  I just can't wait till she has her best-selling novel.  Please purchase it in hard back, don't be cheap and get the paper back. 

 

8

If you really knew Taryn, you would know that she has cried in the cat aisle at Petsmart

 

 

 

9

If you really knew Taryn, you would know that she has adjusted her bra in front of a window looking into a store. Then said, well I guess they got a show.

 

 

 

10

If you really knew Taryn, she really really loves me.

 

 

 

Why we have dogs

Forget all that mumbo jumbo about dogs being "man's best friend."  I'm gonna give you the low down skinny on why the boy and I have dogs...  I may say that it's because Cosmo told me 3.5 years ago that all single girls need dogs, but that's only partially the truth.  The boy "claims" he has a dog because our little Jax man was a rescue who needed a home, but that's probably something he just made up to meet chicks at the dog park.  You wanna know the real reason we have dogs???

It's because we are cheap.

No, really.  Forget that a bag of dog food costs us $40 every 2 weeks.  Forget that the LL Bean dogs beds set me back $200 and an angry call to their customer service.  Forget the fact that we got rid of our carpet in favor of laminate flooring because it was easier to clean up the dog hair.  Forget all that.  We have dogs because we are cheap skates when it comes to home security. 

About a month ago some guy came banging on our door at dinnertime (i.e., wine-time) talking about home security systems and could he give us a quote and all that jazz.  The boy being smart kept him confined to the porch and kindly told him that we weren't interested and joked that our dogs were our security system, blah blah blah.  Truth be told, our dogs are more for looks than show.  Jax is so desperate for attention that I feel confident that if anyone ever did come into our house, I think he'd invite them in for tea and a dog bone.  Sawyer, on the other hand may be able to ward off criminals by drowning (or disgusting) them in a pool of his own drool, but that's about as far as his defensive skills go.

We keep a pretty boring routine around our house.  We come home, go for a run, the dogs eat, the people eat, we relax/blog/clean etc.and around 11:00, the dogs lay on their overpriced dogs beds and pass out until the people get up in the morning.  Like clockwork, that is our lives (sad but true).  A few weeks ago, I rolled over at 2:00am to Sawyer's incessant barking from the living room.  I groggily said to husband, "ughhhh....why is he barking?"  to which he grumbled something inaudible and and buried his head in his pillow.  A few minutes later, he was still barking bloody murder when it dawned on me...this isn't normal.  I was suddenly alert.  "No seriously, why are they barking??" I said again to husband.  He seemed to register the oddness of it at the same time as me, and with both of us confident that we were a little too far from London for our dogs to be alerting Scotland Yard that the Dalmatians were missing, the boy got out of bed to check things out.

I laid in bed and listened to him walk into the living room and talk things over with the pups.  "What's going on Sawyer?" I heard him say.  I listened for their footsteps on the hardwood and heard the boy open the front door.  Then I heard him talking to someone.  Then I stopped breathing.  Who the f**k was on our front porch at 2:00am??  Next thing I know the door is closed and behind him and it's just me and the dogs in the house.

I continued to hold my breath.  Why do we hold our breath when we are straining to hear?  Like the lack of oxygen to my body will help me hear down the hallway and through the front door.  I can't hear anything, but after 7 hours passed (okay maybe it was 90 seconds) I was pretty positive he had been murdered on our front porch.  I got out of bed and decided I had to go outside and see what was going on.

For some reason, at 2:00 in the morning I own exactly zero clothing.  Literally.  For the life of me, I stood in my underwear staring at the outline of my closet and dresser, thinking the word "pants" over and over but I could not remember where any pants were.  Not sure why it mattered at that point, but I did not want to walk into the massacre I was convinced was waiting for me on my front porch in what husband referred to as my "granny panties."  Think Taryn....think.  Pants.  Pants.  What are pants?  My mind does not work at 2:00am.  Eventually I made my way to the dirty clothes basket in our room and found something with 2 leg holes in it.  I stumbled into the living room and stared at the front door, not sure if it was a trap to snag husband first and wait until I wandered outside into the same fate.  Again, I held my breath.  Our dogs had stopped barking and were sitting next to me waiting for the master they liked better to come back inside. 

All of a sudden, husband walked in the house.  "What the hell is going on?"  I said.  "The police are on our front porch.  Apparently one of the neighbors called them and said someone was trying to break into our cars."  Really?????  Nothing was missing, but it did not stop my husband from standing in our driveway in his boxers for 10 minutes talking to policemen on bicycles while several of our neighbors stood on their porches. Why is our life so weird?  And more importantly, why is it that people want to break into my piece of crap car all the time?  It only has 2 hubcaps for the love of God!  It's a 2003 Toyota...not a brand new Lexus!  Aside from a pile of receipts and an old yoga mat, there is nothing in my car.  Oddly enough, even though neither the boy or me remember locking our cars when we got home, they were both locked when we went to check things out.  Hmmmm....

By the time the ridiculousness of the evening settled in, I was already over it.  30 minutes of my precious sleep time on a weekday was enough for me, and I crawled back in bed, but not before making the boy check and re-check all the windows and doors to make sure they were locked.  I was already on my way back to sleepy-town when the boy launched back out of bed, having been clearly stewing over something he forgot to do.  He returned to our room with a baseball bat....because clearly a Louisville Slugger would stop the stray bullets should our petty car thief return and somehow manage to outsmart the locks on our front door, despite not being able to figure out the locks on our cars.

We lay quietly in bed, and just before falling back asleep I said, "I wouldn't be surprised if that damn home security salesman called the police and made up a story just to get a sale."  The boy's response...."I thought that too."

And that's why we have dogs. 

Good Dog. Bad Dog.

Guys, sometimes our dogs wear me out.  Between Sawyer's constant drooling and Jax antagonizing Sawyer, and both of them shedding like nobody's business, sometimes I literally feel like a parent who's unruly children have been let loose in the WalMart. 

Lately  I've begun to realize that even though they will literally spend 8 consecutive hours fighting over a tattered rope in our living room, they are not quite as dumb as they look and act 97% of the time.  Last night my mom stayed at my house and as we were getting ready to go for a late walk around the neighborhood the dogs ran to the door as if they were coming...wrong.  My mom politely sat them down and explained to the monsters, "Now we're going on a walk.  You guys stay here and we'll be back soon."  Then she proceeded to open the door as wide as it would go and walk out to our front porch.  The dogs of course went right out, and proceeded to run circles in the driveway.  I waved a biscuit around and threw it in the house and Sawyer ran right back in.  Jax on the other hand, took some convincing.  After pleading with him to come in the house, sweet talking with him, ignoring him, and offering several generous sized biscuits, he would have none of it.  He finally agreed when I opened the car door and offered him a ride in mom's Camry.  That he went for.  I finally got him in the house and off we went on our walk, while I went on to explain to mom that I too, was shocked that despite the nice chat she had with the dogs about staying in the house, they still ran out when she opened the door and all but rolled out a red carpet. 

When I got home from work today my neighbor across the street gave me the usual greeting and then added, "Hey Taryn, you know after you all left last night...your dogs took off out the front door and just went running down the street."  Oh really?  Did not know that.  They're like velociraptors....they've learned how to open doors.  Now what?  Can't use our storm door all summer?  Not sure, but this is definitely a problem.

Let's get to another issue...the Houdini factor.  I crate trained Sawyer, so in the early years when I was at work, and asleep at night, Sawyer was in his crate in the guest room.  Well, one afternoon my brother went to my house while I was at work to play with the monster and found him laying on the guest bed reading a Charles Dickens novel.  Okay, maybe he wasn't reading...but he sure wasn't in his crate, and the crate was still shut as tight as when I left him.  Problem.  He Houdini'd his way out of that crate and that was the end of his crate days.  Luckily he's learned and I can (for the most part) trust them to roam the house during the day.  Well, I learned over the weekend that the magic tricks were not over.  We shut the gate on our deck  while the boy was laying down fertilizer for the grass so the dogs wouldn't trample it.  I walked outside to ask him something and the pups were on the deck.  I walk inside and walked back out about a minute later, and the gate is still closed but Sawyer is running around on the lawn.  How?  Why?  What?  This happened about 5 times throughout the day, without us knowing how it was happening.  We'd walk him back up to the deck and close the gate and then 30 minutes later he was on the lawn again.  He was a regular Sawyer Copperfield. 

Later that afternoon I just happened to look over at the deck while inside mopping the floor just in time to witness Sawyer leap onto the rail and over the steps onto the lawn.  So maybe he's not a magician, but I think we have an Olympic doglete on our hands.  He also wins for brute force...the day we installed the dog door, we put the dogs outside and put the cover on it to keep them outside.  Within 5 minutes, Sawyer had barrelled head-first through the thing and knocked it of the wall.  Yay for us. 

Dang these mutts make me crazy.  The video below is a perfect illustration of what happens for a solid 2 hours every night while I try to relax and accomplish things like this blog post. 

Yeah, that's not distracting or anything.  Oh, and my personal favorite is the one below where Sawyer bears the shame of what he and Jax did while we were at work (fyi...we keep the ottomans on the sofas while we are gone so the dogs stay of the furniture)...

Fortunately for our dogs, even their bad behavior is quickly forgotten because they're so dang cute sometimes.   



 Yes, my boys are presh.  They wear on my last damn nerve (all 3 of them), but they certainly keep it interesting around here :-).

Catching Up...and it's random...

Not much new with me kiddos...other than the usual that is: crazy busy at work, crazy busy with house projects, and just plain bizz-ay.  Ya digg?  Anyways, in an effort to bore you senseless, how about a 'lil recap of my fabulous life?  Okay great!

Thursday:
Since Thursday was the official kick-off of the NFL, I, being the gracious and thoughtful gal that I am, decided it would only be right to make a big pot of chili for the boy and the brother.  It was healthy chili, of course.  I substitute the ground beef for ground turkey and load it up with tons of veggies too.  Don't worry, it's still delicious...

The finished product! Email me if you want my chili recipe :)



Of course, after dinner, I packaged up the leftovers and sent them with the boy to work for the next couple days.  I got follow up texts both Friday and Saturday once again reminding me that my chili was delicious...not to mention the text I got on Friday from the boy to the effect of "Hey I have hot dogs at work, and your chili!  Chili dogs!"....so much for a healthy meal. 

Friday:
All I remember about Friday was that work was cray-cray.  I hit my wall around 3:30pm, which is right about the time I lost my mind and tried to send this word in an email...

....thank you spell check.  And thank you more to Fridays at 5:00pm...I love you. 

I had planned to spend some quality time with this cute guy on Friday...

...but he had to stay late at work with a customer....Oh the joys of retail!  He literally got to my place around 10:00...an hour later than expected and just enough time for my to give him a kiss before I turned into a pumpkin and had to go to sleep.  Boo :-(

Saturday:
Ugh...don't be jealous of me, but on Saturday, I got to go paint the bathroom at the boy's house while he was at work.  The guest bath was this horrible Scorsese red that I tried to avoid when I was at his house, partly because he never cleans it, but mostly because it's the kind of red that gives you nightmares...yeah, like the shower scene in psycho nightmares....true story.  So, in an effort to keep the housing projects moving, I have to take care of some of the things while he's at work since we rarely have days off together. 

Let me tell ya, because I had both mine and his dog at the house during my de-nightmaring of the bathroom, I had to paint with the door closed.  Umm, pretty sure I sweat more during the hour and a half I was in that tiny bathroom than I did during the 10 miles I did on the bike earlier that day.  No really, the mirror completely fogged up...I kid you not. 

After the painting was finally over, I worked on cleaning the boys house...I will spare you the details of that disaster, but let's just say, a discussion has been had about cleanliness, and that was that.  I will say, in his defense, we don't spend a whole lot of time at his place right now since mine is closer to both our offices, and to pretty much everything else we would want to do.  So he doesn't get much of an opportunity to do many household chores (since he's busy doing them at mine)...

By the way, in case I haven't mentioned it......I HATE PAINTING.  Just had to get that off my chest.  We've so far painted the kitchen, living room, master bedroom, master bathroom, hallway and entryway, and now the guest bathroom.  Ugh...and next up is the guest bedroom.  Pray for me. 

See what I mean?? Ruin my mani, why don't ya...

Saturday night was our first date night in about a thousand years...seriously.  I cannot remember the last time K and me went somewhere, just the two of us, other than the gym or the grocery store (that doesn't count).  Since he got off work at a reasonable hour on Saturday and I was ready for a glass or wine or ten, we hit up one of our new favorite little tapas restaurants and wine bar in Nicholasville.  Yeah, there is actually a tapas restaurant in Nicholasville...I am as surprised as you are.  Since we like it so much, I feel confident that it will close as soon as I move to Nicholasville...so in the spirit of enjoying good things while they last, we had a lovely dinner together.  Lucky for us, there was some kind of fall festival happening in downtown Nicholasville, so along with my wine and cheese platter, I got to enjoy a lovely view of the passersby.  Pretty sure I counted no fewer than 50 men in wife beaters and at least half a dozen toddlers carrying around bottles filled with Mountain Dew, but everyone seemed to be in good spirits, including myself. 

Unfortunately, as dinner was coming to an end, I got an excruciating headache (you know, the ones that just linger right behind your eyes...) and we had to go home and veg out after that.  We ordered "Something Borrowed" on demand...ummm, wow.  Pretty sure even if I hadn't read the book, I would still think the movie stunk.  It really was a toss us between what was more painful...my headache, or the horrific movie adaptation of what was a delightful beach read.  And can we talk about Kate Hudson?  When did she stop being adorable???

Sunday:
I can't say much about my Sunday.  For the first time in at least a month, I allowed myself to just relax.  Okay, I say that, but by relax, I mean lay in bed and watch 9/11 specials all day and cry every time the State Farm commercial came on with the kids singing to Jay-Z.  Promise.  I did manage to make it to the grocery to at one point, and more importantly, paint my toenails before finally making it out of my bed cocoon and join the normal world for dinner. 

Monday:
Work....and lots of it.  I barely had time to eat my Chobani today I was so busy.  It was a total Monday.  After work I sweat it out with my co-worker and friend, Hilary, at the gym and headed home for dinner.  The boy and me came up with a to-do list of things we need to get done this week before we install the new flooring we bought for his house this weekend.  The to-do lists NEVER end.  After that, I sat down on that couch and enjoyed my puppy dog (okay, I get that at 110 lbs. he is not a puppy, but whatev...).  Turns out Sawyer had a busy day too.  After sleeping on my couch (which he's not allowed on, kinda) for 9 consecutive hours, he ate dinner, went potty and proceeded to take turns waiting for K and me to drop pieces of our dinner on the floor and barking at the front door for an hour.  After chewing on his bone and eating a dryer sheet, he was pretty much spent and decided he needed a 'lil nap.

Anyways, that's pretty much been my life for the past few days.  What have my dear readers been up to??

I blog, therefore I am?

Ummm, I legit have nothing to blog about.  I haven't taken any trips lately, accomplished anything or had any deep thoughts.  In short...I'm really boring.  My apologies to all my followers who I tricked into thinking I was interesting.  You've been duped....Suckers.

That said, this whole "I'm a pathetic loser who has nothing interesting to say"  thing really does not bode well for my blog.  I mean, if I am not blogging, then do I really exist?  I know, I'm like, super philosophical, right?  Haha...tricked you again!  I'm not philosophical at all. 

So with nothing interesting to say and no stories to tell, how about a recap of my week so far?  What'd you say? ....No???  Tough shit...that's what you're getting.

Sunday:

1. Breakfast

2. Followed up breakfast with an hour of self loathing after consuming more cinnamon rolls than I care to admit...

3. Tried to ride my dog like a horse since he is about the size of a minature pony. 

4. Dog didn't like it.

5. Target for the 3rd time in 2 days.  Yeah, for rizz. 

6.  Bought bedding...strangely enough, for the 2nd time in two days. 

7. Tried to make up with my dog for the earlier incident by letting him snuggle with my on the couch while I blogged and facebooked. 

Monday:

1. Overslept.  Clearly.

2. Work....work.....work....inappropriate conversation with co-worker....work....wordfeud....work...staring at my work computer....work....sort of working....phone calls....phone calls....work....brain death.

3.  After-work run, followed by heat stroke.

4. Pinot Grigio

5. Trip to Lowe's for paint where we saw a van that had been assaulted by Michael's craft stores and the GOP.

6. Painting at the boy's house.  We are de-boy-ifying his master bedroom so I stop having nightmares about his green walls eating me in my sleep. 

7. More Pinot Grigio.  Clearly.


Tuesday:

1.  Overslept.  Again.  Obviously.

2. Prospecting. Prospecting. Prospecting.  Prospecting.  Prospecting.  (i.e., working)

3. Lunch!

4. Prospecting...customer calls...work...nose bleed....work....email...email....email...e..n.d..l...e..s..s.....e..m..a.i...l..s...

5.  Went to the bathroom and got distracted by my own relection. 

6.  Had more fun emailing with a ring pop on my hand than without....

7.  Discovered my Rosebud Salve had been molested by the heat both in the office and outside.  Pretty sure it was averaging between 99 to one million degrees farenheit.

8.  Gym, where I was informed that someone there thinks I am the "White Kim Kardashian" which basically just means that I have blonde hair and a huge ass.  Awesome.

9.  Pinot Grigio, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Grigio.



So there you have it...my week so far....jealous?? 

Okay, so maybe not.  But the good news is that I'm linking up today with Flip Flops & Pearls for Semi-Wordless Wednesday so you can link up too and check out some posts that may actually be interesting. 






Happy hump day, Chocolate Lovers!

Reasons I think my boyfriend may actually be a dog...

....and when I say "dog", I don't mean the "He's such a dog!" way that your girlfriends use to describe all the shitheads you've dated in the past.  I'm talking specifically the "Woof woof, Ruff Ruff" kind of way.  (Side note: I almost said "bow wow" instead of "woof woof" but was afraid that might lead one to think Snoop Dogg, and my boyfriend is most definitely not Snoop D-oh-double-G).

Moving on....As I said, a few things have led me to believe he may actually be canine.


1.  He's hairy. 

Okay, he's not grizzly bear hairy, but he definitely has an excess of hair in random places (we've covered the nose hair before).  This morning, as I was gazing out of our condo enjoying the calm of the beach you can only truly appreciate before 8:00am, I watched the boy prop his feet up on the coffee table, only to catch the light on his crazy hairy toes.  Something about the sunrise and the position of the beach condo we are staying in shed light on this particularly hairy attribute, and all I can say is "wow".  Hairy toes will be addressed and taken care of before we leave this island. 


2. He chases birds.

No really, he does.  Since we are staying in a beachfront condo, I have begrudgingly dragged the boy along on my morning run along the water each day of our vacay.  It's a wonderful change from the sidewalks of Lexington, and something I will miss when we leave on Saturday.  What I will not miss is watching my boyfriend run after a flock of birds which had landed on the beach as we were doing our cool down walk.  And when I am describing this, please picture in your head, a group of birds minding their own business about 100 feet away, and a 28-year old boy who sees them and thinks "Ooooh, birds!!!" and then chases after them until they fly away.  Too bad I didn't have him on a leash.


3. He doggie paddles.

Now I know you're thinking that this one could go either way since a lot of humans doggie paddle too.  But, rest asured the boy knows how to swim.  He just chooses to doggie paddle, I guess.  I discovered early in the week that despite the fact that you can easily walk out into the ocean for about 50 feet, my boyfriend will choose to "swim" out in even half a foot of water.  Yes, I'm serious.  At one point after playing in the water for about 15 minutes, I informed him that I was heading back to the towel.  He followed suit and came back in with me.  I walked.  He swam.  At one point he said, "Hey, why aren't you waiting for me?!" and when I turned and noticed him doggie paddling in an area of water that didn't even make it up to my knees, I replied, "I don't know you" and continued walking. 


4. When I scold him, he hangs his head and mopes away.

Yes, he really does do this.  At first I thought it was him trying to be funny, but now I'm not so sure.  Even when I get on him about something silly, I get the same response...head hung, walk away.  Seriously??  I don't think asking him to put the toilet seat down when he's finished is the equivalent of "shaming" him.  Although with the way he acts about it, I guess so.  Usually I can give him a treat though, and all is forgiven again.


5.  He gets excited easily.

I swear this boy gets excited over the stupidest stuff.  And when I say excited, I mean, eyes light up, shit eating grin, and if he had a tail, it would wag.  Most recently, he got excited over discovering we could get free coozies at the Piggly Wiggly here on the island if we spent $20.  Well, we only spent $12, so I bought the thing for him anyway.  In his little canine mind, I have no doubt he was thinking, "This is the best day!!!"


6.  He referes to EVERYTHING as his "toys".

Much like a dog, everything he likes is referred to as a toy.  Be it his phone, computer, my breasts, a frisbee, an actual toy, a boat, or a ball....if he likes it, it's a toy.  Sometimes I wonder if I asked him to "Go get your toy" similar to the command I give my dog Sawyer, whether he would come back with a cell phone in his mouth. 


7.  He's always happy to see me.

This one seriously baffles me.  I've dated my fair share of men...nice guys, not so nice guys, nerds, assholes, etc.  You name it, I've dated it.  None of them ever seemed genuinely happy to see me EVERY time I came into their presence.  Even when I'm moody and mean and not all that fun to be around, he still seams happy to just lay next to me and look at me, or try out all his best tricks to get me to smile.  This quality I think is the one that seals it for me.  He is most definitely a dog.  If we actually lived together, I wouldn't be surprised to come home to him waiting at the door, tail wagging, drooling, ready to jump on me and in his canine way say, "I've missed you so much!  I'm so happy you're home!  I love you!  This is the best day!"  


I rest my case.

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So what you do think....man or dog? 

The Matrix

For those of you who don't know, I have the luxury of driving around in a 2003 Toyota Matrix.  I'll stop for a moment right there so everyone can take a moment to marvel in the life of luxury and oppulence I experience day to day....

Okay, moving on....as I said, I drive the Matrix.  Sounds cool right?  I mean, Keanu Reeves and Larry Fishburne are cool, and everyone loves action and the special effects we saw in "The Matrix" the movie.  Let me tell you what is not cool...a car called the Matrix.  Well, my car to be specific.  Since purchasing this bad boy about 3 years ago, I have put over 80,000 miles on it (gotta love being an outside sales rep).  Based on the US National average, cars are expected to have an average of 10,000-12,000 miles put on them in the course of a year...anything above that would be deemed "excessive" by industry averages.  Well, you know me...I am anything but average and as can be proven by the 26,000 per year I've managed to rack up on that bad boy.

In addition, Valvoline likes to tell me that I am supposed to drop $60+ on an oil change every 3000 miles too and will demonstrate said wishes by sending me harrassing "reminder" emails and putting a sticker at the top of my windshield every time I go in....ummm...no thank you.  That would be one every 45 days....promise. 

So, facts and statistics aside....let me tell you a little bit about the joys of driving this little car.  Miles aside, this car actually gets pretty decent gas mileage which bodes well for me in my job as a sales rep since I spend a good deal of time staring out this windshield.  That's about the only thing I really enjoy about it these days to be honest, and the sad part is that I often see other people driving these Toyota Matrixes and think how cute they are.  I look longingly into the windows of Matrixes that I see parked at the grocery store when I'm walking past.  They are actually great little cars!  Mine, however, is a dump. 

For starters, my dog has taken ownership of the back seat.  I can no longer use this area of the car as it is covered in blankets, sheets, towels, etc. for the dog to lay on, and those blankets, sheets, and towels are covered in dog hair.  It's basically a no fly zone.  Not only are the windows in the back seat covered with dog drool, slobber, and nose prints, but I don't even bother rolling the front windows down anymore because they create a swirling mess of dog hair in the car which brings hair not only into the front seat, but at times my mouth as well.  Yay for me.

my Sawyer's backseat

The other really awesome thing about my car is the tendancy for the hubcaps to fall off.  I seriously do not know what is up with this.  Through the course of the winter and early spring in 2010, I lost all 4 hubcaps at random times, leaving me with a pretty janked-up looking pile of crap to drive around.  That got old after a few months to not only me, but my family members, so my mom hijacked the old Matrix last summer and got 4 new ones put on.  Thanks Kelli.  Good news though.....sometime in March I walked out to my car and noticed the right back side was devoid of one of my precious less-than-a-year-old hubcaps.  Two weeks later, the front left side jumped ship as well.  Apparently my car did not like the asymmetry and needed to take action to balance itself out.  I have now gone through 6 perfectly shitty hubcaps and am forced with the insurmountable task of waiting for the other 2 to go missing so I can buy a new set of 4. 

You jealous yet??

Well, don't be, because you have yet to hear the coup de gras...this morning as I was leaving for work, I noticed this:

Aside from dirt and dog hair, what you are looking at is a console devoid of nearly all my CDs!  Apparently some asshole decided to help himself to all the CDs in my car (with the exception of one dropped under the car and a couples others) and rifle through my glove compartment (where I had more CDs for the taking).  In addition, said thief also stole 2 car chargers as well.  Seriously?  WTF??!!!

Don't worry though...among the 3 CDs that were left were "Data Disk 1" and "Kenzie's Mix" (Kenzie is my 15 year old sister) so I can still rock out in my car (note sarcasm).....yay for me.

 So, there you have it....another day in the luxurious life of me.  Happy Tuesday!