Happy 1st Birthday My Darling Theo!

In woolly mammoth mode!

After his recent haircut!


I love this little dog soo much! I know some people think it's irrational to love a doggy as much as I do, but I can't help it. Sometimes my heart just aches when I look at him. This has been a really, really hard year for me personally...but Theo has been the one thing (besides David) that has brought some light and joy to my life. I'm actually a bit scared to have human kids for fear I won't feel as strongly about them as I do my Theo. I truly feel like he was a gift from God when I needed one most!

Snow Puppy!

I loooove snow, so I was very excited that it snowed a bit today and that Theo got to experience his first real snow! He wasn't quite sure what to make of it and he wasn't too happy that his mom kept trying to make him sit still so she could take pictures!

"What is this wacky stuff?"

"Mooom, my tushy is getting really cold!"

"Dad, pick me up and save from the psychotic picture taking lady!"

Wal-Mart documentary

Last night I watched the documentary WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price , and if you haven't watched it you should! I have never been a fan of Wal-Mart...in fact, I think I've only been in one about 3 times ever. But after learning about some of their business practices and how they treat their "associates" it is safe to say I am never stepping foot in another Wal-Mart for as long as I live!

I think one of the facts that struck me the most in the documentary was that The Walton Family, which is worth over $95 billion dollars, has only donated 1% of their net worth to philanthropic organizations. Yes, that is still a lot of money. But seriously people, what do you really need with the $94 billion dollars that are left over! Bill and Melinda Gates on the other hand, have donated 58% of their net worth and plan to increase that percentage. It's just such a staggering difference that it is astonishing to me.

I do realize that all documentaries are pretty much shown from one person's point of view, but if even half of what is talked about in this documentary is true (and it is, because I've done a lot of reading on the subject lately), it is just a horrible, horrible company that I do not wish to support with my money. I would much rather spend a bit more money on items and support a company whose ideals are much more in line with my own!

Pirate Puppy

David won't normally let me dress Theo up, so I've told him I at least get Halloween. He didn't even want to walk Theo out to the car when he was dressed up though, lol. Luckily, my friend Elisa finds doggy dress-up just as hilarious as I do, so we went over to her house on Halloween. :)

My grandma is 92 today!

I know she doesn't even really know what the internet is and surely will not see this birthday greeting, but I just wanted to wish my grandma a Happy 92nd Birthday anyway. She is the sweetest woman and I just love her to pieces. So much so that any daughter I have will be named after her...luckily she has a nice name! :)

Here is a picture of her 2 years ago at her 90th birthday party. She looks sooo pretty!

An answer to a prayer...

I hadn't talked to my mom in a while, like over a week, and I finally talked to her last night and she told me that she had been avoiding talking to me because she didn't want to have to tell me that one of her dogs, Toby, had gone missing. Mom and John have a very large fenced yard, but they often leave the front gate open and had never had any probelms with Toby leaving before, but he must have seen a cat or other small snimal and chased it out of the yard and gotten himself lost. She was hoping that he would just show back up before she had to tell me, but it had been a few days (he went missing Tues. night) and she wasn't so sure that was going to happen anymore.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE dogs...so I did not take the news of him being gone very well at all! I literally cried all of last night, so much that I had a headache for about 8 hours straight until I finally fell asleep. I just kept imagining all the terrible things that might have happened to him and I just felt sick thinking of him out there all scared and alone. You see, Toby is kind of a wimp...one of the sweetest dogs you'll ever meet, but a wimp...and I did not have high hopes for him surviving well on his own. When we first got him a couple of Christmases ago from the Humane Society he was terrified of concrete, being put in a car, and even being taken out of the house. He had been at the pound for a long time before mom adopted him, and he had been adopted out twice before and then taken back both times, which is why I think the poor thing had all these issues. But he has made so much progress living with my mom and is such a well-behaved boy now. I just prayed and prayed that he would find his way home...for Toby's sake and because I knew my mom felt incredibly sad and kind of guilty about him running away. But in my heart, I truly didn't believe that he would ever be home again. I'm ashamed to say it, but I had so little faith!

But early this morning a mini-miracle happened! My uncle Joe was on the way to take some stuff out to the city dump (a way he doesn't even normally take mind you) and he saw a dog wandering around by DeSale's (the Catholic high-school in town) and the baseball field complex right next to it and thought it looked vaguely like Toby. The area is about 2 1/2 miles from my mom's house! My uncle saw a guy out in his yard and asked if the dog was his and he said "nope" so my uncle raced up the couple of blocks back to his house and grabbed my aunt Susie (we're not really sure why, but we think my uncle thought Toby might run and wanted a reinforcement) and then went back down to where Toby was and luckily he was still roaming around there. My aunt called his name out and he shot his head up and came running over to them! They put Toby in the truck and brought him home.

Mom said she saw uncle Joe at the door and then saw Toby sitting right beside him and just started bawling! Soo many people had driven around looking for him and had been praying that he would come back and he finally did! Mom said he was so tired from walking around for the last 3 1/2 days that he didn't even have the strength to act happy to see her (and this dog looooves my mom). She said that he is so stiff and sore that all he managed to do before going to sleep was drink a bunch of water, but he seems like he will be fine. I am just sooo thankful that Toby is home. My heart just ached thinking of him being gone. Especially now that I have my own little doggy, I just can't even imagine how I would feel. I mean I know in theory they're just dogs, but in my family they are very much important members of household, and I am just so happy that Toby is back where he belongs!

One year ago today...

It's been a hard 1st year in many ways, but never because of our marriage. That has always been the rock that made everything else okay. I am just so thankful to have David in my life! And I know it's kind of a cliche, but I truly do love him more each day.

Putting things into perspective...

You know those times when you're feeling kind of depressed, and frustrated, and maybe even unlucky (yeah, see previous post)...and then you hear something that really makes you appreciate all that you DO have? Well, last night was definitely one of those times!

I went out to dinner last night with one of my best friends and she informed me that she had sad news to tell me. An old friend of ours from college was river-tubing with her parents and a couple of her friends on the Wenatchee River last Thursday when her mom got stuck on some debris, couldn't hold on, and eventually went under and drowned. I was/am shocked!

This was a wonderful Christian woman that I had the good fortune to meet while in college. She and her husband ran a boys ranch for troubled young men near Leavenworth at the time, and they opened up the lodge there to our Christian college group. They were the sweetest hosts and you could just tell how much they loved the Lord and eachother. My friend always had the nicest stories of her parents and she just adored them.

Needless to say this caused me to think about some of the feelings that I've been having lately. I've found that it hasn't made me worry any less about the future or changed my mind on wanting good things to happen for David and I...but it has made me truly appreciate the people that I am lucky enough to have in my life. I may not have everything that I want, but I certainly have what I need.

So I feel like all I do is ask for prayers lately, but if any of you could keep the Ellis family in your prayers I'm sure they could use them right now.

**On a little bit of an offshoot...I have white-water rafted on the Wenatchee river before and always thought of it as an "easy" river because it only goes up to a class III. Several times in the past couple of weeks, I have even thought about planning a river-tubing trip on the calm stretch of river where this accident happened. Never once did I think of it as a very dangerous activity. Just a couple of days after Mrs. Ellis drowned, another woman drowned on almost the exact same stretch of river in a very similar scenario. Neither woman was wearing a life-jacket. Whether that could have helped them in any way we'll never know, but it just goes to show you that even calm looking water can be dangerous. So please, please make sure you and your loved ones wear life-jackets!!

Warning: Pity Party Post

Let me preface this all by saying that I do know I have many things to be thankful for. I have a husband that I love more and more each day. I have a puppy that I adore so much that I'm actually a little scared to have human children, for fear that I won't find them nearly so cute or endearing as I do my little Theo. And I have a small, but wonderful, group of family and friends. So I do know that in many ways I am very lucky.

But man-oh-man I just feel like nothing is going our way this year! David did not get the job that we hoped he would and I am just feeling very sad and slightly bitter about the whole thing. The woman he interviewed with (who owns the company) initially called HIM. She knew exactly how much sales experience David had and what kind of work he'd done in the past (David's friend works there and told her about David). She interviewed with him for about 90 minutes the first time and told him all about the pay structure, which was mind-boggling, and kept saying how she wanted to talk to him again and just basically made it sound like he had an excellent chance to get the job. So fast forward to 1 week later and she still hadn't called. So David called her to see if they could set up another time to talk about some of the topics that she'd mentioned wanting to discuss, so they set it up for the next day. David and I spent a couple of hours that night going over things he could say and writing down good talking points. The next day when they talked he said her whole demeanor had changed and she wouldn't even let him finish what he was saying before she started asking him impossible-to-answer questions and then finally telling him that it wouldn't work out. What the heck? She made it sound like he wasn't qualified when she'd known exactly what his previous experience had been before she'd ever even called him...AND the last guy she'd hired (David's friend) had far less sales experience than David does and was given 2 weeks to learn before he ever even talked to a client. I just don't understand why she couldn't give him the same chance. It just frosts my cookies that she set this whole thing in motion, got his (and my) hopes all up by acting like David had an awesome chance and then just smashed it all to pieces like it didn't even matter. This lady's whole schtick is that she wants to hire "good people that want to work hard and make money"...I'm sorry, but if she's looking to hire a "good" person who is willing to work hard, then she couldn't do any better than David. He is more honest and has more integrity than just about anyone else I've ever met!

All of this on top of the fact that David's company is starting to hire and will be training people in CA to do his job, so if he has more than 6-8 weeks left at his current company I would be shocked (though they haven't told him any of this as they don't tell him anything...he just hears it through a reliable source), AND I'm not working anymore right now (long story I don't want to discuss), AND our rent has risen $200 to $1055 a month for a tiny 1 bedroom apartment. Good grief, we could pay a mortgage in some towns for what we're paying in rent (and we do not live in the most expensive apts. by any stretch)! I just want a house with a yard for Theo and there aren't any decent and affordable ones in our area. I just feel like the job he didn't get was the only chance we had to be able to live the kind of life we want to. I know people will say that David will get more opportunities...and I'm sure he will...but I can guarantee that they will not be as financially rewarding. And I do realize money isn't everything and there are a lot of things that are more important, but sometimes it's just hard to see it that way.

Okay...pity party is now over!

More prayers needed...

David had two job interviews this week! Both companies contacted him, so I'm definitely giving God the credit on that one. He thinks that both interviews went really well, which is awesome, I'm so proud of him! The second interview in particular...if he gets the job, it would just be the greatest thing for him career-wise that I could possibly imagine! We could wind up doing so many great things for our little family and our big family. I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but I can't help it! I just pray that this is the path that God wants for us.

I personally have had a beyond tough time in the past week and I am not all that comfortable with sharing specifics online at this time. But if any of you could keep both of us in your prayers I would be so grateful!

He bakes?

Last night at about 10pm David got it into his head that he wanted from-scratch chocolate chip cookies. After trying to sweet-talk me into making them (i.e. "but you make them soo much better than I will") to NO avail he decided he was going to make them himself! Now, in the almost 4 years we have been together I have only seen him bake one thing...brownies from a box, in which he forgot one ingredient. So to say I was not sure how this would go is an understatement!

He asked a lot of questions as he went along and had a couple of humorous moments, such as when he scooped the cookie dough out onto the baking sheet and made each ball of dough so big that if he had baked them that way they surely would have all just melted into one big cookie, lol.

I teased him about his baking skills quite a bit, but he wound up doing great! So great that I told him I never need to make cookies again, because he can do them so well himself. His response was "man, I should never have done this!" haha

And during all this, what does a good wife do? She takes pictures of course!

Pictures from the Park!