Filed under: Uncategorized
So, I’ve been tagged with the 20 Questions meme by my pal Chris VanderWal. So let it be ordered, so let it be done. Rules:
A) People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs & replace any question that they dislike with a new question. (I haven’t changed any questions.)
B) Tag 8 people to answer the questions.
1. How many songs are on your iPod?
617: Sad, I know. I am just not much of a techno-phile….but I am trying to learn more.
2. What music would you want played at your funeral?
I haven’t really ever thought about this……I am going to keep answering questions, and maybe I will get back to you.
3. What magazines do you have subscriptions to?
None. My husband keeps getting Golf Digest, even though his subscription ran out almost 6 months ago.
4. What is your favorite scent?
Lavender Johnson & Johnson baby lotion. I also SOMETIMES like things that smell like vanilla….but it depends on the vanilla.
5. If you had a million dollars that you could only spend on yourself, what would you do with it?
PAY OFF DEBT! Pay off our house, or maybe move. Take a really nice really long (2 weeks maybe?) vacation.
6. What is your theme song?
Again, haven’t thought much about it……maybe this lack of musical thinking is why there are only 617 songs on my ipod.
7. Do you trust easily?
If we are talking about profound, trust with your secrets and your life sort of trust….definitely not. But I do give people the benefit of the doubt most of the time…..assuming that most people are good at heart…..often this goes on for far too long, and once the tables have turned….and you have gone on my official “bad person” list, it takes an awful lot to get off it.
8. Do you generally think before you act, or act before you think?
I definitely think first, often too much.
9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
Our very busy weekend travel/work schedule. I think that the next time we have an “uncommitted” weekend is in the middle of November. Even though most of our commitments are pretty fun and definitely necessary…..the schedule sort of sucks.
10. Do you have a good body-image?
If you had recently gained 15 pounds all in your belly would you have a good body image? If I were surrounded by penguins maybe the story would be different.
11. Is being tagged fun?
I am with Chris, I like reading other people’s answers
12. How do you spend your social networking (Facebook, etc.) time?
I check Facebook at least once a day and I try to read my friend’s blogs at least once a week.
13. What have you been seriously addicted to lately?
Ice cream.
14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
I think this question is a blatant “warm fuzzy” machine……but…..that being said……
Chris is a very intelligent funny, warm, and caring sort of guy. He is committed to staying connected with his friends, often overcoming the challenges of distance and time (I believe this to be a decidedly rare quality). He is often overly opinionated (one of the reasons I like him) and can talk a blue streak. He loves dogs, adores his wife, and has a genuinely kind heart and a strong moral compass.
15. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?
I woke up with that sort of new Rhianna song in my head…..SOS…..strange, I know. I have no explanation.
16. What’s your favorite item of clothing?
Currently, a pair of super comfy billowy capri length maternity pants that sit under my belly without squeezing me. I would wear them every day if I could.
17. Do you think Rice Krispies are yummy?
Yes. Especially when they are made into rice krispy treats. Yum yum yum. I also like rice krispy treats made with coco krispies and those toasted coconut marshmallows. It is a super decadent version of the traditional rice krispy treat. I highly recommend it.
18. What would you do if you see saw $100 lying on the ground?
Of course I would return it if I knew who it belonged to….otherwise I would probably spend it at Target. That is really where most of my money goes. If there was a “Target” piece of pie in my microsoft money pie chart, it would be pretty big.
19. What items could you not go without during the day?
My toothbrush.
20. What should you be doing right now?
Getting ready for work and working on my “plan to make our Arthur Murrays rock big time.”
** As far as tagging 8 people goes, I am not sure that 8 people actually read my blog. So I suppose I should just tag everyone that reads my blog and see what happens……
20.5 weeks
Pregnancy is definitely an interesting experience.
My second trimester has been SO much better than the first, and I am thankful every day that I am one of the fortunate women whose morning sickness was limited to one trimester. All-in-all I am feeling really good and have been going about life as usual.
Having just crested the half way point (we are now at 21 weeks)….my ever forward expanding belly continuously makes me aware of all the things that I used to take for granted.
1. Getting out of chairs. It is definitely getting more difficult. I am great once I get out, but I can see that this may become a problem…..
2. How cute “skinny people” clothes are. When I go shopping at the ONE maternity store in Fort Wayne, I am forced to walk past the windows of the non-maternity stores…..with their SUPER cute new fall collections tauntingly displayed for all to see.
3. Putting on panty hose. Oye. This is all I have to say. It is getting more difficult, and promises to become VERY hard. Putting on pantyhose is much harder than putting on shoes (and the shoes are getting tricky too) because they are connected in the middle, thus preventing the “bringing the foot to the outside of your thigh” or the “sitting Indian style” methods of putting on shoes that are becoming more and more necessary. Pretty much any bending over where I cannot stand with my legs apart is getting pretty uncomfortable….and threatens to be impossible in the weeks to come.
4. While we are on the pantyhose discussion….panty hose in general. So far, I have yet to find a great, or even adequate, pair of maternity panty hose. Even the specifically maternity pantyhose hit your belly in the middle. VERY uncomfortable…..a little hint for the designers of maternity pantyhose…..they need to go ALL the way up….the waistband needs to go right under your boobs. Right now I am buying regular non-control top (control top….WAY TOO TIGHT) pantyhose, cutting off half of the waistband, and pulling them up as high as I can. This has been working moderately well so far, but is a temporary solution. I will soon have to experiment with the queen plus size….or whatever comes after queen…..king?
5. Sleeping on my back (I have MUCH MUCH sympathy for stomach sleepers). I love to be able to sleep on my back, but according to all of the pregnancy literature out there, after the first trimester it is a bad idea to sleep (or even just lay) flat on your back….something about the weight of your uterus compressing the major blood vessels in your lower body…..blah blah blah…… Not only is it sort of hard for me to sleep on my side all the time, but all of my “educational prenatal reading” has freaked me out so much that I will wake up with a start if I happen to roll to my back in the night. I have found that lodging myself between pillows sometimes prevents the inadvertant and horrible “roll to the back,” but it also makes it sort of difficult for my husband to snuggle with me.
I am sure that there are many more thrilling, interesting, and unexpected things in store for me as we continue on this journey…… In fact, I have a feeling that in only a few weeks I will look back at this list and laugh at my inexperienced naivatee. 
Filed under: Family
Caesar Milan (the Dog Whisperer), claims that in order to successfully train your dogs you must relinquish the role of “dog lover” and embody the role of “pack leader.” I am not quite sure what I think about this theory of puppy raising on a couple of levels. On a basic and admittedly rather uneducated level, I am not sure that I buy into the whole theory as the singular and only legitimate method of dog training. And more importantly, I am not sure that even if it is true, that I have the capacity to assume the necessary role.
Currently, I definitely fall into the catergory of “dog lover.”
Our first dog, Booda, was very easy to train. His natural compliance and sensitive nature combined with his “first dog” status and the fact that we didn’t have cable television at the time (lots of time to train puppies) led to a very obedient dog.
Our second dog, Max, is a crazy dog. He has many many redeeming qualities, the greatest of which is his outstandingly sweet and loving personality. However, despite being a pretty smart little guy with a naturally non-malicious nature, Max has NO natural sense of obedience. He is his OWN dog. He does what he wants, unless, of course, you are brandishing treats or any type of food. Fortunately, he is naturally a pretty good dog and doesn’t get into a lot of trouble. He never chews up anything that isn’t his, or pees in the house, or any of the normal “bad dog” things.
However, as far as actual “obedience” he is a little lacking. Max has NO sense of tonal differentiation. If you so much as raise your voice at Booda he immediately stops whatever he is doing and never does it again. We can yell at Max and he barely raises a little doggy eyebrow. He is starting to be better with this. He now rolls over on his back into his “submissive dog” pose, but the energy level never goes down, and when he feels like the reprimand is over he just jumps right back up, happy as a clam.
I think that Max really tries to be a good dog, but he is such a high energy little puppy that he just can’t control himself very well. He can “sit” and “down” pretty consistently. It is all the “wait” and “stay” commands that he can’t wrap his little doggy brain around. We see him trying, but he litterally vibrates out of whatever command we are working on at the moment.
I really think that time will be the solution. It is my hope that in another year Max will have settled down enough to embrace his obedience training. Maybe this will happen, or maybe not…..But in truth, I think that I would rather be a “dog lover” with a slightly less well trained dog, than a “pack leader” with a dog that can jump through hoops and run obsticle courses.
