Meet the Family: C

This week, we are meeting C! Ok, ok, her name is actually Charity. And here she is!

Charity will be 10 on the 25th of this month. She is a fireball. She has been hitting the "tween" years pretty hard lately. (Check back a few earlier posts to witness some of the  mayhem!)

She is in karate but also likes playing softball. In the summer, she becomes a fish. Her favorite color is pink. And she loves Hello Kitty. In the summer, she becomes a little fish. Her freckles or "angel kisses" as she likes to call them, have truly come out since our move to Texas. We love them and so does she!

I hope you enjoyed meeting Charity, for obvious reasons, I am not divulging too much information about her. She is the light of our life and I don't know what I would do without her spunk in my life. She is very smart, just needs to really apply herself.

Meet the family: Lucky

Slowly I am coming out of anonymity. Starting small, baby steps people!

Lucky just turned a year and a half. I am always asked what breed he is, he is a bagle hound. A bagle hound is half bassett hound and half beagle (he has other stuff but he is mostly this).

Since he is mostly a hunter, if you don't pay attention while you are taking him for a walk, he will see a squirrel or rabbit and try to take your arm off. Thankfully, I have learned if it's a squirrel, just let go. He will tree it and wait at the tree for you.

He has a great personality. He loves people and likes meeting new people. Just don't make him think you are trying to sneak up on me in the dark, he will growl, but not bite. He also loves meeting other dogs. He doesn't understand why other dogs don't want to meet him. He will cry if he can't meet your dog.

He doesn't know many tricks, sit, up, and speak are pretty much all he knows, I have tried getting him to lay but it's been slow. He does know: kisses (or make a kissing noise and he gives them up, usually). He knows what bedtime is and prefers to sleep with his head on a pillow and sometimes a blanket, as long as it doesn't cover his face.

He loves to chew, especially when he is anxious. We try to keep bones handy if we know he will go through a phase. However, he likes to murder stuffed animals, he dismembers them first, littlest to biggest. Then, the stuffing. Then the squeakers, he will play catch with himself until he loses these. He has the carcasses of many stuffed animals in his box.

Things he regularly plays with or chews: erasers, socks (usually B's), underwear, pens, pencils, straws, and cups. He hasn't chewed a pair of shoes since last summer and they were a pair of flip flops.

I can't think of much else, except if you come to my house and we eat chips, expect to share. He also likes green beans.

Lucky is also terrified of random items. Such as: 

• tape measure. We think this has to do with when he was a puppy, we lived on my father in-laws property and he was constantly using tape measure, then some sort of drill or saw. We think the loud noise of the drill scared him.
• vacuum. You can catch him running wildly from it whenever it is on.
• lighters/lit candles. I think he may have gotten to close to one before.
• rain/water. He is a giant sissy!
• thunder. He is not a fan of thunderstorms. He will cuddle up with you just to keep him safe.

All in all, we are lucky to have him around. He freely gives his affection, even when he doesn't want to go for a walk just to sniff or you have some food he would like a taste of.

Any quirks your dog has?

XOXO

Jes

Whoa!!

Plans are made! I let C's sensai know that Friday will be her last karate class for roughly a month. She will be getting her white with yellow stripe belt on Friday! I can hardly believe it! I am so proud of her.

Also, we will be driving to Oklahoma to meet up with my in laws on Sunday. I am excited for her to go see family. We really had a chance to visit them often when we lived up there.

Oh and I know it means less now that we are married, but B and I have been together for 4 years on Friday. Kinda hard to believe! It has been rough, but I couldn't have a better partner in this journey.

XOXO
Jes

Inspired

With C going out of town, we are going to give her room the makeover ir desperately needs.

She is torn between wanting a Hello Kitty room and a Paris theme. One thing she is certain of: her favorite color is pink.

When we went to michael's arts and crafts, she liked the 50's magazine covers they had. They were classic and beautiful. Something that a girl like her should look up to. She is very into fashion and beauty but also a little bit tomboy.

So, I am thinking of marrying the bright colors she loves, the romantic feel of Paris and the classic beauty. I have a few Cricut cartridges that will help me do that. The thing with renting, we can't paint the walls. Bummer. But! It's Ok. There are plenty of ways to inject color without that detail.

To be honest, she has never had a room that was "her". The closest we got was our last place before the big move to Missouri. Even then, we picked everything out for her not knowing exactly where we were going. This time, we have her in mind and I hope she loves it.

The thing with the cricut, it cuts vinyl. And I have the sophisticated cartridge and the ornamental iron 2 cartridge. All I need is some repositional vinyl and I am in business! Woot!

We discussed it today and we thing thrift store furniture will be the better option to go with a few items from my favorite porn store, er, I mean, Ikea. She originally picked out something but it isn't truly her style. I like to mix and match affordable things from various places. At least I would like to. Buying used and from ikea will allow us to do it up nice! When we finally get down to business, I will be sure to post some pictures as we move along.

XOXO
Jes

Brand Loyalty?

This is a post that may jump around a bit. You have been warned!

B and I are huge on thinking things through, or he likes to "beat a dead horse". I never was this way before him. I was an impulse buyer. I was never that person who would ask anyone what they have purchased or what they recommend. I just dove headfirst into a bunch of things.

Never B. He has always researched everything before purchasing something big, and sometimes small. It used to bother me. Now, I find myself doing it. I don't know when it started? Maybe back when I was going to buy a camera?

Either way, I research lots of things. Like cameras, computers, printers, craft supplies, etc. Maybe he rubbed off on me or maybe I just want to spend my money more wisely. I don't know.

Back to brand Loyalty. Take our phones for instance. We started off with blackberry. We loved them! Until we didn't. We had been hoping to make the switch to iPhone for awhile. So we did. I had always said that I would never switch to another type of phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy s2. Ha! And honestly, I love it more than my iPhone. I still have an ipad but hope to switch it to a Samsung Tablet Note in the near future.

My film camera? Canon. I have a point and shoot that is also Canon. I have always wanted a fancier camera. Well, we looked yesterday. I don't have enough experience using my film camera to warrant spending a ton of money for the Canon RebelTi5, so we looked for a more "midrange" camera. I can't even tell you the name of the Canon we looked at, but we looked at it vs a Nikon in the same price point. And I can't believe I was thinking it, but the Nikon won. We didn't purchase anything, we were Window shopping.

Let's just say this: the Canon had fewer megapixels than my point and shoot. It did have 50x zoom, but the Nikon was winning with more megapixels it had 42x zoom too. The on/off button on the Canon was on the other side of the knob, I tend to snap a few shots and shut it off, I just felt like it was a bit of a stretch for me. All in all, I may be making the switch. If someone gave me $500 and told me to buy a camera today, I would buy the Nikon. Sorry canon, you are still good, but this time, you didn't make it.

FYI, I used to only buy Kodak point and shoots for the user friendly designs. I bought C one a few years ago and it works great for a beginner.

So, phones and cameras? They have been switched up. I still love me an HP computer. Their printers, not as much.

What have you switched brands on after loving a specific brand for ages? Are you like I was and just bought what looked good? Or do you research things like B always has?

XOXO
Jes

It's Been Decided...

I will be going back to work.

I will say this: it wasn't easy. We had to make a pro and con list. Not something we usually do. Between needing stuff for the house and having wants a mile long, among other things, we decided that it might be better if I just bit the bullet and went back to work.

It's going to be strange, I haven't worked since the beginning of January. C will be going out of town, to visit my in laws in Missouri. She leaves Sunday! I am going to miss her like crazy, but I think we need this break. When she gets back, hopefully I will have a routine with a job and adding her to the mix will just be simple.

Lucky probably won't like it much, but I know he will adjust since he has taken all other changes like a champ.

Not sure what I will be doing yet, but it should be fun! Ack!

XOXO
Jes

Up The Wall

I guess I didn't even tell y'all that we actually hung pictures! I actually hung one awhile ago. It's B's skull chef. It's kind of high, like me standing on a counter to hang it high. And I hung a picture from our wedding.

Well, when I made B's Father's Day presents, he was so anxious to get them on the wall. We also had other pictures made for our "family wall". All of this has been talked about prior to this, but we had finally found places for stuff.

Our "family wall" is 5x7s and 4x6s above our Window and front door. The others (the reviews and the other stuff) are going up the stairs to C's room. I wanted them to be inspiration and I wanted people to be able to read them.

We had enough to start on both walls. I had other framed pictures and we went to the dollar store and picked up 9 more frames. Putting those together was easy. The other one, the inspiration wall, it has the 2 reviews, the giant picture/collage, a certificate saying I was on the dean's list and a leaf that C did awhile back. There are other certificates up there to and we plan on putting more up as we get it or find it.

The other pictures I hung are actually paintings. We have a set of 3 from a friend of B's. I hung them up above the sofa. I actually had the drill out to properly hang something else and I decided it was time to hang them up. I get a little excited about the drill. I kept looking for more stuff to use it on (it's a cordless drill from ikea and it's mine!).

Anyone else like their drill a lot? So much so that you get sad there are only a few projects to use it on? Just me? What about picture hanging?

XOXO
Jes

Miss Independent

I realized today that I possibly lost Miss Independent when I became a Mrs. I. And the I doesn't stand for "independent".

I can do amazing things. I can put a desk together, hang pictures on the wall, air up a tire (change it if I really need to), pump my own gas, cook amazing food, clean house, etc. However, I hate using the plunger.

Up until a few years ago, I never used one. I have watched other people use one, I think I may have owned one in my first house, unused by me. I just hate using them. I think it's just gross.

Our tub keeps getting clogged, it's an older apartment, it happens. If I could, I would switch the drain for a screen. But, the stupid plug thing is in the way and I have no idea how to remove it. Because up until today, it would drain, slowly, I ignored it. Ha! I even bought some drain cleaner to help it out, I just kept forgetting to use it because it still kinda worked.

Until today. The damn thing wasn't draining at all. B was at work and I can't stand looking at dirty tub water (C had just taken a showerbath). So, I grit my teeth and had at it with our cracked plunger. It took probably a good 30 minutes to get it drained. Yuck. After it was drained, I poured the liquid drain stuff in it. It didn't drain. Frustrated, I took Lucky for a walk.

I came back and the yellow stuff was gone! Yay! So I let a little hot water go through. It drained, but slowly. I repeated the process for about 2/3 of the bottle. In the meantime, I yelled at B because stopped up drains are his area. I don't normally ask much, occasional plunging, trash taking out, heavy lifting, and cleaning of the fridge. Oh, and the checking of the dipsticks.

Well, I guess Miss Independent made her appearance tonight and showed the drain who is boss! I just hope it really worked and isn't just messing with me. That would suck.

Anything you always rely on your husband for? I used to "forget" to put gas in the car, now I just fill it every few weeks.

XOXO
Jes