I love my dog park...

I love the fact that not only do I live 4 minutes from a HUGE dog park, but that I have great views along the way. So this is the view of Garden of the Gods from the entrance to my complex:

The cute little path that I take for about 2 minutes before I'm at the park:

Well, when I got there, a big storm appeared to be rolling in:

I was right. Fortunately, it didn't start until an hour or so after I got home.

Bailey loves the park! Each time we go, he "abandons" me for other owners. Apparently I don't give him enough love at home.

There are pretty patches of sunflowers all over the place:

And you can see the dog park from my front porch!! It's also a good shot of the storm coming in. It's going to be AWESOME watching the snow storms roll in come late September/October!

Jealous?? :-)

Saturday Update

I got up early and caught up on some Food Network shows (Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals), while Justin headed out to go fishing in the great 80 degree weather we're finally getting!! I brought Bailey over to my parent's house since I'm dog-sitting Baxter while they're on vacation, and basically let them run around the house. Speaking of the house, the wind was INSANE!! Things were flying around everywhere - it blew all the petals off of all the tulips, the patio chairs were strewn all over the backyard, tree branches broke off of trees and flew around the neighborhood, and my parent's Hummingbird feeder flew off the tree and broke upon impact and their seed feeders all blew sideways and dumped all the seeds on the ground. Whoa. I did not stage these photos:

While the dogs ran around, avoiding flying objects, I watched another Hindi movie, called "Love Aaj Kal". It was a really great movie - good story line, good songs, and a tearful ending. Yea, I cried at the end of a Hindi movie - what of it? It was good!! I also finally got some laundry done - the nice thing about staying at my parents; I don't have to put in quarters to do laundry!



Then, I decided to pile on the sunscreen like I was going to the beach, threw on some shorts and a tank top and went to the dog park! I felt so guilty thinking about how nice it was outside and even though they were in the backyard, I just had to get them out and socialized!! Finally, after the park I took a very needed shower and gave Bailey a bath, then relaxed and planned out everything I would need for my fun-filled Sunday!!

Still alive!

I'm still here! I've been extremely busy at work as we approach our busiest season, and each night when I come home, I just love to crash. But, here's a little update on my life currently:

1). Justin and I were approved to rent an awesome townhome right across the street from the local HUGE dog park!! So not only is the place really nice with a lot of space, but I can take Bailey to the dog park everyday, getting both him and me some great excercise!! And come June 7th, I have no excuse! I'm really excited about it!!

2) Justin's new job is going really well, and I really like the people he works with. He's spending a lot of time at work, and working really hard, and he's having a great time. It's so great to see him so happy! And he'll be on his first business trip for them the last week in May - they're sending him to Kansas City for a full week of training; pretty intense!

3) My parents leave this month for a 2 week cruise around Italy and Greece (jealous much?!?!?!?). They're sending Cody (the puppy) to a dog-sitter who works at their vet's office, so I only have to watch Baxter! They're doing that for 2 reasons: they know my schedule won't allow me to be home during the day and Cody is still in the stage where he needs to go out several times a day, and they also know that the three dogs with just me will be really stressful after a while. But Baxter is a great, easy dog and it's easy to have both of them at either the apartment or the house.

And, the best news is, the 2nd week of the dogsitting is when Justin is on his business trip, so I will stay at the house the entire week, and minus the dogs chasing each other a few times, it will be so quiet!! I can't wait!!

4) No news on the weight loss front, unfortunately - but I have less than 5 lbs to go to get to my goal weight, and if I just started walking more, I should have that off in no time! The best news is that I'm at least maintaining, and I haven't had any gains.

So thanks for checking in! I hope to be back on here soon with some pictures of what's been happening!!

Wonderful Sunday

I had a really great Sunday!! And I mean, the best one I've had in a while. But that was mostly because of all the snow!!

My car was COVERED when I took Bailey out for the first time...

There was no one else outside, and Bailey is great off the leash, so I gave him a treat! He had his cute little Orvis sweater on to keep him warm!

Such handsome little man!

After we got inside, he disappeared. Here is where I found him.

Here's the view from the balcony. There used to be mountains there.

Bailey at the dog park! We weren't the only crazy people who went!

Bailey with his favorite thing - a stick!! He will not ever give up a stick!

Here's a good example of what happens when he has a stick!

I worked on some crafts for Christmas presents...

Bailey was apparently tired as I folded my laundry - he clearly had a long day!

Watched some Saturday Night Live On Demand - I am just NOT a fan of Taylor Swift. Yuck.

All in all - it was a great Sunday!! I did everything I wanted, and everything I did, I enjoyed!! Hope you had a great weekend as well!

Bogus internet

Our internet is spotty again so this is, once again, from my phone.

Today was a great day. Nothing special, butI tackled the kitchen again, and took Bailey to the dog park!

I also played Lego Batman and got quite a few more levels. It was a great end to a 5 day vacation. Let's just say I don't want to go back to work!

Thanksgiving Memories

For more detailed descriptions, see yesterday's post. But...I do want to point out a couple of more things:
- Justin made the pumpkin pie (and he hates it!). I only read the instructions but he put it together!
- That turkey was 25 lbs! It could feed up to 18 people!

Thanksgiving Festivities

Whew. I finally find myself with a few minutes to take a deep breath and blog. (Pictures to come very soon!!!)



I think the best way for me to document what has happened over the past few days is by listing it in "bulleted" form. So here goes:



Wednesday:

- Had the day of work and was able to sleep in (finally!) til 9 am or so.

- Met up with my mom, sister and her 2 kids, and went shopping at K-Mart and the Dollar Store. There is no way on this planet I will step foot in a store on Black Friday unless absolutely neccesary, so shopping the day before is fine with me. And I didn't even get anything!

- We went to Justin's parents house around 4:30 and had a mini-Thanksgiving dinner: Turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, and cranberries. Then after dinner, we took Bailey and their 4 dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. Anything to get Bailey to lose some weight! (He's still limping).

- Talked Justin into getting me LEGO BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So let's just say that's how my night ended.



Thursday:

- Got up a little earlier than normal and drove to the local dog park to meet up with Justin's parents. Spent about an hour there and Bailey was TIRED!

- After returning home and showering, we went over to my parent's house for Thanksgiving dinner. We got there around 1 and mainly spent the time watching the Cowboys and lounging on the couch. Justin helped me by making the pumpkin pie!!

- We left briefly to run to the store for milk and to get Bailey his dog food, which he promptly scarfed down.

- Dinner was WONDERFUL!!! We had turkey, stuffing, cranberries, corn, squash, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans...and I think that's it!! Talk about a feast! Lots of laughs were shared, of course, and dessert was just as good with apple and pumpkin pies. I feel like I don't have to eat again for a month!



And the best news???? That I get to put my Christmas wreath together this weekend!!! And start decorating! I think Justin and I will be going tree shopping this weekend too - I can't wait! And I can finally listen to Christmas music and not feel guilty. I'm so thankful for a 5 day weekend!!



Hope the holiday was wonderful for you! Have a safe weekend! (And NaBloPoMo is almost over - and I've posted every single day!!)

Weekend Update

Friday night: We did absolutely nothing. I was able to watch Jurassic Park! It was really great to watch it again after such a long time – brought back so many memories!! And the T-Rex is still extremely freakin’ scary! Next weekend, the 1st sequel!

Saturday: Justin and I had no official Halloween plans and no parties to attend. So on the plus side, we didn’t have to create costumes! I’m not totally into Halloween, so normally if I don’t have plans, I’m not really bothered by it.

The weather was really nice, so I was able to take Bailey out to the dog park, and boy, was it PACKED!! Of course he had a great time at the park and we were there for about 45 minutes. However, a few hours later he began limping. There seemed to be no reason why, and he limped on and off through Monday morning. He was fine personality-wise, was putting weight on his foot, and doing everything normally. Since he wasn’t bleeding out of multiple holes, I made an appointment for Monday afternoon with my regular vet.

All night we got no trick or treaters, but just in case any showed, I put out a “Sorry – no candy” sign, because we didn’t go out and buy any. Turns out we didn’t even need the sign! However, we put out 3 tiny pumpkins on the porch as décor, and the next morning we only had 2. Who would steal a $1 pumpkin??? I spent the rest of the night watching “Ghost Adventures” on the Travel Channel. Those guys have no idea what they’re doing. It’s basically 3 Frat guys trying to piss off ghosts. And they will believe anything! Every other word is “Dude” or “Man”. For example – “Dude, I totally just had something touch my leg, man”. Funny to watch though. And the stories and “evidence” are still pretty chilling. And it was Halloween. Here's a picture of the host (and can I say...YUMMY!!)

Sunday: Slept in and made sure to keep Bailey off his legs as much as possible. I didn’t want him walking around if he had sprained or fractured something. Sunday was also filled with organizing the apartment and watching some games. Cheers: The Cowboys won! Jeers: The Broncos got their first loss (a killing!) and the Yankees moved to 3 games up in the World Series.

**Update on Bailey** – I took him in to the vet Monday afternoon, and by the time I got to the office, he had completely stopped limping. The vet looked him over for 15-20 minutes and could find no reason why he would be limping. In her professional opinion, he’s fine. We’re not really sure why he’s limping, but he seems to be in no pain. The only thing she could think of was to maybe have him lose 10 lbs or so and see if that takes some “stress” off his joints. So there’s more exercise for him in the near future!!

I could eventually get x-rays or put him on medication, but the vet didn’t really press either option because he’s not visibly in any pain and it seems that it comes and goes which means he can work it out by walking on it. So who knows what’s next for this little monster in the next few days. Gotta keep an eye on him.

And as of 8 pm MT tonight, he's still limping. But only on and off. So I don't know what to do!

And as for 30 Posts in 30 Days - - 3 posts down, 27 more to go! Can you handle it?

A Good Cry...

This may seem like a weird post, but I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker of mine this week. She didn’t have a very good weekend, and is looking forward to having a better one this weekend. She mentioned that she just needed a “good cry” to get all the stress out from last week. That got me thinking about what a “good cry” really is…

For those of you who don’t know (mostly men), women don’t always cry randomly, due to a sad commercial, or someone saying or doing something mean to us. Sometimes we deliberately make ourselves sob to act as a release for all of our stress. If you’ve ever watched “Everybody Loves Raymond”, there’s actually an entire episode based around this fact; Debra uses an afternoon where Ray and the kids are out of the house, to sit on the couch and just let it all go, and cry.

He happens to come back for some reason and see her crying, and feels that she’s lying when she tells him she’s crying “just because” – he feels that she can’t cry unless she has a reason, and the funny part is that he feels it was something he did. We don’t always need a reason to cry!!

But we got into a discussion on what movies are our “go-to” movies when we want a “good cry”. Immediately, this co-worker and my boss started naming off movies like “Steel Magnolias”, “The Notebook” and “Of Mice and Men”. I’ve actually never seen any of those, so I couldn’t say I agree with them. But that got me thinking – what are my “go-to” movies?

I like “Love Actually” for a “happy cry”.

That’s the one I’d go to if I just wanted to get a few tears out, but still leave with a happy feeling. If I’m in a good mood, the last thing I’d want is to watch something depressing and walk away more sad than I was to begin with.

For a “sad cry”, if I’m having a bad day or something, I normally pull out Sex and the City.
I can hear people thinking “that’s a sad movie?” If you’ve seen it, and you’re a women (no offense), then you know that yes, it can be heartbreaking at times, and I would say there wasn’t a dry eye in the house during certain scenes when I saw it in the theater. Again, if you’ve seen it, you know what scenes I’m talking about. For the most part, I don’t normally like to keep “sad” movies around because I would much rather watch a comedy, and once you’ve seen it, it doesn’t really have the same impact the next few times. But I can always find myself feeling for the characters in Sex and the City, especially since I understand the story lines due to the tv serires. And I can always count on tearing up – whether it’s for a happy moment, or a heartbreaking moment.

But to end on a high note...below is my picture for the day!

Dog Days at the Broadmoor

Today was the 2nd Annual Broadmoor Dog Days - an event for all of our employees and their "fur" children. It is held at a dog park that is less than a mile from my apartment, and I normally go to this park several times a week. So for this event, I walked there! It was right around this time last year that I was moving into my first apartment, so I didn't stay too long at that event, but I also had a 6 month old puppy that I was trying to wrangle. Enjoy some pictures of my co-workers and I enjoying a nice day out! (I also posted a new blog on Bailey's page - so click here to see more pictures of the "Bailey Monster"!)

Mini Picture-pa-looza!!

I found my camera cord! So, prepare yourselves!!!


I walked into the bedroom and found Bailey's leash (so that he doesn't bug me when I'm eating) like this on the floor! I SWEAR I did not pose this!

Then Justin went fishing one weekend in Woodland Park and I took a book and got some great reading done!

And finally, I took Bailey and my parent's dog, Baxter, to the dog park back in March!