what I miss…

Not for one second would I go back to my “former” life, but there were, undoubtedly, some really great things that I do miss. Just to name a few…

Going to the lake and wakeboarding all weekend, then coming off the water to grill brats and burgers and chicken and sitting with friends on the deck watching the people…and the stars….and the night. Listening to rain on the metal roof. Having someone “there” to be able to share things with and do things with. Sitting in the hot tub with friends, drinking (whatever, alcohol or no!), laughing, watching TV, cutting up. I miss going to the beach with money…real, live money! Having money to spend on things, needed or not.    Running wherever I wanted from my front door. My 4Runner. I really, really miss a fenced backyard. Lake parties. The lake. (Did I mention I miss the lake…?) I miss the double income that comes with living with the one you….well, the one you live with! 

Seeing people in love in my life, on TV…my friends, my coworkers, “random” people I run into… I want that! I WANT THAT!                                                                                                                                  (picture wide eyes, banging fists irreverently on table, head back, screaming into the air)

more pictures from the holiday weekend

“the zoo”- my dogs and their dogs!

a possible escapee!

 

patrick mid-swing. playing golf in the front yard

mom! there’s a hamster in there! see??! mom! get it!

connor playing golf in the front yard

connor- great picture

chewie says, “let me out!”

playing guitar hero- check out his legs…!

I LOVE this picture!! caught him mid-bark…hahaha!

some things that are on my mind- right now.

gardenias @ Barbie’sconnor- sick and tuckered outupside down patrick!

Hmmm, things that are on my mind right now. My sinus infection. The words “screet”, “betroom” and the comment “what she said?”. Pitbulls, rottweilers, dobermans, chows and sometimes german shepherds. Amoxicicillin, the wonder drug. Moms and babies. My blackberry- better known as daily crack.

 My sinus infection…. I think I have an ear infection, too. Just makes me feel like crap and everyone looks at me like I’m so poor and pitiful. Yuck. Can’t wait to be done with this and feel better.

The ebonic terms “screet” and “betroom” and the phrase “what she said?”. Y’all. Seriously. This is NOT the English language. It’s just not. If you can’t speak it correctly and with the respect that comes with living in the United States as a part of the MOST blessed nation on the face of the earth, then you will always be looked at as lower class. That’s not me talking, that’s America talking- that’s what our nation of people will always say. There’s a lazy sort of attitude attached to that, a “no, I don’t want to learn how to speak correctly, why don’t YOU work around ME” sort of attitude. I think I’m going to have to do some more research as to how to change this because right now…it just seems very generational. This practice continues to be passed down from generation to generation and no one does anything about it…b/c nobody cares to do anything about it.

Pitbulls, rottweilers, dobermans, chows and sometimes german shepherds. Being in the apartment business, I’m finding out that it’s very hard to find apartments for people who have or are getting these kinds of dogs. AGAIN, these dogs are not vicious. These should NOT be considered vicious breeds and all those who DO consider them vicious breeds are prejudiced, biased based on other cases that are rare. It’s like saying “we won’t take african-americans in our apartment complexes b/c they are the ones who are causing most of the crime, just look at our prison system”. First off, these breeds of dogs are NOT vicious by birth, they are MADE vicious. If you were tied to a tree with no food and water and TOLD to bark and bite and growl at every single person that walked by, YOU’D be mean as well. What pisses me off even more (yes, that’s how mad I am) is that people continue to fight them and breed them to fight or breed them to be vicious and they KNOW it’s wrong, with no regard for the animal’s life or the animal’s rights. Like they’re just there for making money and causing bodily harm. That’s so wrong. I went through a drive-thru the other day where a young man greeted me at the window- he was INCREDIBLY dramatic about my two sweet Labs hanging out the back windows, then proceeded to tell me that he had two pits at home. Of course, I asked him if they were the sweet, lay-all-over-you kind or the mean kind. He got THAT LOOK in his eyes and arrogantly smiled and looked away. I immediately started in on him about how wrong it was and why he would do that to a precious, innocent little dog. He said “well, I need protection.” GET A GUN! LEARN HOW TO USE IT and WHEN NOT TO USE IT. DON’T DO THAT TO A DOG. Again, one more thing that’s passed down generationally that needs to be taken care of.

Amoxicicillin, the wonder drug. I love it. Rarely do I have any problems taking amox, and most of the time, it does really well to work for me. This time around…hmmm. I wonder if I haven’t been taking it as regularly as I thought I have? Or maybe I have something else other than a sinus or ear infection…

Moms and babies. Moms are just the greatest. They give up so much of themselves for their children, sacrificing time and energy for the happiness and peace of mind of their babies. EVERY day should be mother’s day. To all you moms out there, I salute your courage, love and unending talents.

And finally, my Blackberry. I totally see why they call it a Crackberry- it’s totally and completely addictive. I actually sat at my desk the first week or so after I had my phone and sent an email from my Blackberry…CRAZY!!! I could have sent it faster and with much more grace, but no….I had to do it from the phone. It’s seriously the coolest thing I’ve ever owned. The obvious rhetorical question is how did I ever live without this??!!

 

aunt pooh goes to ATL…

I got a call yesterday afternoon from one of my best friends, if not my best friend, in the whole world. she asked me to come over for the Memorial Day weekend and, since I’m not working and she batted down all my excuses (no money, moving, sick, no time), I ended up driving over here with the pups laying in the backseat at about 2130 last night. for those of you who know me, you know driving is one of my most favorite things to do…but it gets better at night when I have the dogs in the backseat and I’m driving to see someone or some thing that I love.

I any time, day or night, week day or weekend, summmer/fall/winter/spring, I’m welcome at this house, full of true love and fun and total “laidback-ness”. We have watched kids laugh and play and throw things at each other and eat messy meals on the table and stick their hands down their pants (what can I say, they’re boys…!). We have taken pictures and caught up and laughed. Then we sat on the couch next to each other, watching TV and watching the boys build legos and beat each other up, while we talked and laughed and watched stupid YouTube videos, reminiscing and realizing that absolutely nothing had changed.

THESE are my true friends- the ones who love me no matter what kinds of stupid things I’ve done or said (or may do or say). As Blair said tonight on the way out the door, “y’all are two peas in a pod.” Thanks, Blair- that’s the best compliment I’ve gotten in awhile.

I’m gonna see if I can post some pictures from today. I don’t get this picture-posting stuff. It won’t work for me! 

 

 

 

a (little) blurb ABOUT me…

Trying to cram (almost) 29 years of life into a blurb on the web for all the world to see is quite difficult! Female- working all the livelong day, coming home each day to a huge apartment filled with light and 2 very happy chocolate labs, jackson and chewie. love my job, though with everything, it has it’s ups and downs, the good and bad. going back to school in the fall to finish a degree that should have been completed almost 7 years ago (has it really been that long??!). parents are fantastic. brother is phenomenal. friends- just fabulous. my true friends are those who have seen me through the hard times and don’t think any less of me. I have absolutely NO idea “what I want to be when I grow up”- I’m pretty easy to please…don’t need or want a whole lot as long as I have my family, friends and precious dogs. (I know…it’s crazy. try not to judge me! ) I love being a Southern girl, born and raised in Alabama. I LOVE Auburn football…and all things Auburn. I would love to move there one day. I am still trying to find a home church, though I’ve narrowed my search, which is good. I am getting back into shape after a bout with laziness (read: depression) and am so worried that I’ll never get back to where I was.

I am constantly on the lookout for the man with whom God made for me to spend the rest of my life. I know he’s out there, I know God has made him for me and me alone…and he is….WHERE????!!! I love music, I love driving, I have a huge heart for animals, and I love writing. I love most anything that’s blue, and I have a bit of an addiction for the following: medical pens (but they have to be the right kind- I’m picky), shoes (heels…!), pictures and photography, really bad weather (rain and thunderstorms), journals and stationery, sheets, candles and oil warmers, ice cream (big smile), the beach, napping, red wine and eating out- I don’t like cooking too much, but cleaning up and making things clean again, I’ll do all day long. I LOVE organization and keeping things clean.

do you think….

….that dogs (well, animals in general) know that there are other dogs out there?

We, as human beings, know that there are others- too many others- in our world that are suffering from malnutrition, homelessness, incurable diseases and disabilities. There are children that are living in foster homes, not knowing the warmth and love of a mother’s touch or what the feeling of getting up on a Saturday morning and going to a soccer field to kick around the soccer ball with their father. There are those who are homeless, maybe by no fault of their own, just a “run of bad luck”. There are children with distended little bellies in parts of the world that seem unknown to the souls that are blessed to live in the United States of America…where we take for granted that we can put food on our table, fill up our cars (and massive suburban assault vehicles) with gasoline and drive all over tarnation going to practices and recitals and movies and expensive dinners out with our families and friends…and where we put animals outside, thinking that’s just a FANTASTIC way for them to live…outside, with or without other animals to play with, thinking that outside, ALONE, with rare human attention is “having a dog”. We claim “we have dogs at home”, but filling a bowl with food, another with water, throwing the occasional ball and “letting” the dog inside (read: ”letting” them in the basement/mud room) when there’s bad weather DOES NOT CONSTITUTE HAVING A DOG. When you take in a dog, that dog should be part of your family, not a second thought on the way out the door or a fun toy to play around with on the weekend if you have time. BUT I DIGRESS.

Do you think dogs know that there are other dogs out there? Do you think they know that somewhere, maybe even around the corner, there is another dog that needs a home? That there’s another dog that needs someone to love and play and care for them like they SHOULD be loved and cared for? Do you think their little animal hearts break because they know there’s another animal soul out there that needs love and a home? I don’t think they do- but I KNOW THAT THERE ARE…and it upsets me to no end that I can’t do as much as I want about it.

I know. I know what you’re thinking. “It’s just a dog.” “It’s just a cat.” (Well, now we’re on to a different breed- I just don’t get cats, but maybe that’s because I’ve never had cats.) But if it’s between taking in a person who is lazy and doesn’t want to get a job and further themselves and always wants to depend on someone else OR a dog who doesn’t have a home….I’ll choose the dog ALL THE LIVELONG DAY. And I won’t apologize for it either. PEOPLE can go out and get jobs. PEOPLE can get help at the local homeless shelter (if only for a few days or weeks). PEOPLE can further themselves with a job and an education and meeting other people and living on two incomes. Even if it’s only flipping burgers and living in some podunk part of town, they can make ends meet and live their lives.

A dog can’t do that. A dog can’t go out and get a job. A dog can’t get an education to help them toward a degree and a better life. A dog can’t walk up to the nearest home and ask- beg, even- for food, shelter and clothes or beg for a basement apartment to stay in while they put the pieces back together and try to move on with their life, to make something better of themselves with just a little generosity from someone else. What does a dog do? That dog waits- that dog waits for someone with a big heart, someone thinking of them, someone who might take them home and help them out. That dog waits- whether it’s in the rain or under a set of bleachers or in an empty alleyway or near people so maybe they’ll see him and see how hungry and tired and sad he is. If that dog is fortunate, someone will pick him up and maybe take him to a shelter where he’s given food (hopefully- with the donations of businesses and people like us) and taken out of the rain/cold/heat/drought and given water and shelter and a safe place for a little while- a place where hopefully his picture will be taken and posted all over the internet so someone will see him and want to take him home. And if that dog is REALLY fortunate, that person will pick him up and take him home to live forever and ever with food, love and attention with a regularity he might not have seen before.

I know- I KNOW. Dogs- animals of all types- will go to live in Heaven when they die- barking, meowing, neighing, whatever…praising forever at the feet of their Creator. The eternal destiny of my friends, family, “random” people with whom I come in contact and the souls to be won for the Kingdom should be my everyday concern. And it is. Of course it is. It is first and foremost on my mind when I talk to my Savior every morning- and throughout the day. But that DOESN’T mean I don’t care about what happens to animals. I wish everyone shared my concern for animals, but I know they don’t. And that absolutely breaks my heart…even more than the plight of some humans.

Which is why I see it as my job to help out all the dogs/cats/animals I can- not all the dogs I WANT b/c I’d be broke and RUN OVER with animals. (Those of you who know me know that is entirely true.) God gave me a tender heart for animals- I don’t know why, but I KNOW without a doubt that’s a burden or responsibility (or whatever word you want to put in there) that I’m supposed to deal with.

on a night like this…

… I could fall in love, I coud fall in love with you.  ~Derek Webb

That is the title of one of my most favorite, yet all too short, songs. It’s very relaxed, very lovey and very VERY romantic. And on a beautiful night like this, in a great city like this, and with all that I have to offer… I am still very alone. I’m wondering where that someone is, where that man is (man! that’s MAN. not boy, man) whom I can call my partner, my head of the household, my love. My person to take me to church on Sunday, my man to run in the mornings with, my man to go out to dinner with, my man to pray on my knees with, my man to curl up on the couch with. My man. My husband. Where is he? Where is that man I know God has made for me and only me? Has he already come and gone? I know I have to be patient and wait on God’s timing- y’all know how that is. God’s timing is not my timing- and I know I should be so, SO grateful for that because I DON’T know what He has planned. But it’s times like these that I wish I did. Darn mortal human nature…

I should be counting my blessings- I have a great job which I love that affords me the capacity to spill the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people that I meet on a daily basis, whether it’s in simple acts that bestow kindness, treating them like I would want to be treated or in actual, physical conversation. I have a roof over my head, and (most of the time) I’m able to pay all of my bills. I’m healthy, I have a God who loves and cares for me like I was the only child of His on the face of the earth. I have a Savior who will forgive me of all my sins if I simply ask His gracious forgiveness and will allow me to live with Him throughout eternity if I only declare Him as LORD and ask Him to rule my life, serving Him in everything I do and say. I have a family who is amazing and has “been there for me” throughout it all. I have the opportunity to go back and finish the degree that should have been finished in 2001. I have two adorable chocolate labs (whose pictures you will see littering this page with a frequency I’m sure MOST will tire of!) who are my children, my babies. I have really REALLY great friends, one of whom I’ve known since the 3rd grade. I am healthy, (relatively) happy, I have a car that works beautifully and gets me from A to B (with a little fun in between!). If not best of all, it runs a close second…I live in the South. Birmingham, Alabama to be exact, where some of the most friendly, true-to-their-roots Southern, Bible-believing people on the earth call their home. We have great weather- albeit so riDICulously hot sometimes we can’t stand it-awesome football (WAR EAGLE!) and some of the best places to eat in the South, if not the nation.

The past few years- almost 3, to be exact- have been times of change for me- and not just every-day, ”that’s-life.-it changes.-if-it-didn’t,-it’d-be-boring change”, but topsyturvy-completely-turn-your-life-upside-down kind of change.  It’s not what I could have EVER pictured- or wanted to picture- for my life, but it’s exactly what God had planned for me. He knew the decisions I’d make and what twists, turns and bumps (read: MOUNTAINS) my life would encounter. And yet…had I continued the life I was living, I’m fairly sure I would not be where I am today…walking daily with the Lord, learning more and more about people literally every day and finally going back to finish my degree. (By the way, if anyone has any ideas on what to finish in, career paths are now being accepted with open arms!) Had I continued down that road, there’s a good chance this child might not have been singing the praises of a loving, living Savior.

    There is SO much to learn- still. I still don’t understand why things have happened the way they have- why friends have fallen away, why people don’t get along, why pets die, why life is…the way it is, why people can be so mean just for mean’s sake, why so many times it seems like I just can’t catch a break- of course, I could go on. But it doesn’t matter. It just…doesn’t…matter. That’s not what I’m on this earth for, and thankfully- GRATEFULLY- this mortal, dying world is not my eternity.

BRAND NEW!

I’m brand new to this making-everything-you-think-a-public-knowledge thing, but I’m excited. I’m going to post pictures and let y’all stay updated through my blog… or the old-fashioned way by calling (or…GASP!…texting!).

Have fun, y’all….