Ghosts

I miss my friends.

I miss having breakfast together. I miss making plans to meet after class at the dining hall. I miss being able to have lunch with my friends for two hours. I miss knowing that they were meeting me for dinner. I miss taking off my makeup and brushing my teeth next to them while we discussed the day. I miss our weekends of fun sprinkled with bouts of homework. I miss sitting on bunk beds, and bean bags, and futons talking about where we had been and where we were going.

I miss all the laughter. I miss the "let's grab coffee," and "let's grab frozen yogurt," and "let's grab pizza." I miss the drives to the beach, and the drives to go shopping, and the drives just for the sake of driving because we had nothing to do and nowhere to be.

I miss being your whole world, and your shoulder to cry on, and your inspiration, and your go to gal. I miss being the one you asked first about everything - what to wear, who to make out with, whether to call.

I miss telling you to call.

I miss telling you not to call.

I miss the music, and the dancing, and the late nights drinking what we shouldn't be drinking, and smoking what we shouldn't be smoking. I miss the adventures of beer pong in the fraternity basement and dance parties at the football house. I miss knowing that I will see my friends in a few hours.

I miss your tears, and your smiles, and your laughter. I miss the brutal honesty and the transparency and the fact that you never told me what I wanted to hear. I miss you telling me what I needed to hear.

I miss you and most of all I miss the person I was when I was with you.

I haven't been the same since.

Please Do Not Get A Pet If.....

If you are easily grossed out by vomit, you should not get a pet.

At some point in time your animal will vomit somewhere in your home.

I promise.

It's not their fault. Vomiting could be caused by illness. Vomiting could be caused by a hairball. Vomiting could be caused by them scarfing down their breakfast so fast that they trigger their own gag reflex resulting in breakfast making a second appearance (Ebenezer does this at least once a week).

Your animal will vomit and will most likely vomit someplace really, really, REALLY undesirable.

Like on your carpet.

Or your furniture.

Sometimes even in your bed.

Sometimes they vomit first thing in the morning, so it sits for 8 hours until you get home to discover a dry, crusty, smelly vomit pile soaked into your carpet. Sometimes they vomit next to you while you are on a conference call with your boss. Sometimes the vomit splatters all over important paperwork that you have scattered on the floor. Sometimes they vomit all over your day planner. Or all over your work bag. Sometimes you're lucky and they vomit in front of the dog, and the dog takes care of the vomit for you.

So gross.

Your animals will vomit. And you will be forced to clean it up.

"I threw up on the rug. Three times. Three different spots. I feel better now."

If you are concerned about feces or urine in your home, you should not get a pet.

Feces and urine in your home is pretty similar to vomit. It will happen. Dogs and cats vary on the reasons why they improperly eliminate in the home. Let's tackle dogs first. If your dog urinates or poops in your home, it's most likely your fault.

Yeah. I said it. Your. Fault.

Chances are you work long hours and aren't home enough to have a dog. Chances are the dog really, really, really had to go and couldn't hold it. Chances are you're too cheap to hire a dog walker or take the dog to daycare. If you don't have adequate care for a dog when you're at work, you shouldn't have one.

The truth hurts. Doesn't it?

Training also plays a huge role. It's takes time and patience and even more time to properly train a dog to do it's business outside. I would say that 80% of dogs that use your floor as their own personal toilet is due to long hours without a potty break and or improper training. I would say 20% could be attributed to an illness where they are incapable of holding their bladder or bowels.

(Sidenote: Simon had explosive green diarrhea in our house this week that involved the throwing away of a large area rug and the cleaning of his poopy pawprints that were a direct result of him walking through aforementioned diarrhea and transporting the diarrhea from it's original locale to other rooms of the house......)

Cats - totally different story. Cats will improperly eliminate in the home for one of three reasons:
1) They're sick
2) They are unhappy with their litter box - size, shape, location, type of litter, frequency of cleaning, smell, etc.
3) Because they feel like it. Let's face it, cats are like woman - they can get pissed about anything at any time. Leaving their excrement where it's not supposed to be is their way of saying, "I'm not a very happy camper."

Sometimes it's an easy fix. Sometimes it takes months and months of figuring out what the cat is mad about.

Dog or cat. Poop and pee in your house will happen.

"The poop smeared on the wall? Yeah, that was me. It was stuck on my tail, where am I supposed to wipe it."

If you do not want your furniture ruined, do not get a pet.

We've discussed vomit, urine and feces. When you have animals you can count on one of these items (or maybe even all three) coming in contact with your furniture. In addition to disgusting bodily fluids you will have to deal with hair because NEWSFLASH animals have hair.

Tons of it.

Now, you can certainly get around this by getting one of those hairless cats, or hypoallergenic dogs. But for the vast majority of people that end up with animals, hair is a given. Hair will be on your furniture, on your clothes, in your food.

Animals also have nails and teeth. They will chew or scratch or pierce your furniture. Table legs will get gnawed and couches and carpets will be used as scratching posts. It's inevitable. If you can't deal with bad things happening to your furniture, I highly advise against pet ownership.

Unless of course you opt for a fish.

If you do not want other inanimate objects in your home destroyed, don't get a pet.

One of the most amazing and fun things about owning a pet (or pets) is discovering all the weird f*ck up sh*t they do or get into that you would have never imagined a pet doing. Simon has a weird fetish with my underpants. He plucks them from the hamper and leaves them scattered all over the house. Mia likes to sniff the inside of our shoes and then roll around in them. Ebenezer likes to lick my duvet cover until he's left a sopping wet spot. Stuff will get ruined. It's all part of the joys of having animals.

"Ohhhhh CHEW toy, not SHOE toy. My bad."

Now, if you're read through my list and still want a pet, congratulations, you have a soul.

Pets will indeed cause harm and destruction to your home and the items housed within it. Sometimes they will ruin something you really love. What's important to remember is that it's just stuff. Stuff can be replaced. An animal will love the heck out of you unconditionally. Animals are sad when you're sad and happy when you're happy. They will know when you've had a bad day and curl up at your feet to keep you company. They will give kisses and snuggle with you on the sofa and keep your lap warm. They will walk beside you and lay beside you and bring you more joy than you could ever imagine.







And then they'll poop on your stuff.

And pee in your shower.

And vomit on the mail.

And you'll love them anyway.

Super Sad.

I'm really kind of heartbroken over the recent death of Whitney Houston.

In my opinion, music entertainment today is in the crapper and has been swirling in the toilet that is popular music for quite some time. It seems as if it's not enough these days to be talented and a great singer/vocalist. It seems that in order to become famous, in order to make it in the entertainment industry, in order to sell music, you have to push some sort of envelope. For example, take sex and sexuality. It's not enough to be subtly sexy or to leave certain aspects of your sexuality to the imagination. In order to be successful, in order for the public to listen to your music you need to put everything, including your lady parts, on display for all to ogle and admire. Even the likes of vocal powerhouses like Mariah Carey, and Christina Aguilera, or Xtina, or whatever the heck her name is, at one point in time used their gyrating girly bits to sell themselves, their voices, and their talent despite the fact that their voices needed no extra gilding. Their voices and their talent were enough. But no. What good is a voice that isn't accompanied by an implanted bosom and a little rump shaking?



Then you have your Gagas and your Madonnas and your Nicky Minajs that choose to copulate with religious figures like Jesus and Judas and perform onstage Catholic exorcisms.....



.



WTF?

I just don't get it. I don't find music involving religious figures to be a turn on.

I think that is why I liked Whitney so much. She didn't wear crazy outfits, or flaunt her t*ts in my face or push any political, sexual, or religious envelopes. She would simply open her mouth and magic would waft out.

She wanted to dance with somebody. She wanted one moment in time to be all that she thought she could be. She was every woman. She was your baby tonight. She was saving all her love for you.

She sang about concepts that I could relate to. Love. Lost. Longing.
Concepts that everyone could relate to.

And despite her crazy drug use, despite her demons, despite being married to that loser Bobby Brown, she was always classy. The cherry on the sundae that is Whitney Houston is that she never did those crazy vocal pyrotechnics that so many vocalists do today to prove that they can sing like Whitney.

No one can sing like Whitney.



R.I.P. Miss Whitney

Give It Up For My Birthday

Today is my birthday. I've known for about a month and a half that Brian was going to have to work tonight.

Say what?

Apparently the head honcho dudes at Brian's company picked January 31st to fly to Boston and attend a Bruins game.

Boo. Hiss.

Being the awesome wife I am, I told him that I was fine with him having to shmooze and kiss some corporate booty on my birthday. Deep down I felt kind of crappy about him working tonight, but come on! Am I going to force my husband to skip out on an evening that may potentially help his career and pad our bank account somewhere down the road?

I think not.

So I put on my big girl panties and told my husband it was fine.

I smiled, gave him a big hug and a smooch, and told him he would just have to make it up to me.

And boy did he ever.

He reserved a room at the Back Bay Hotel in downtown Boston on Saturday night. He recruited my little sis and her boyfriend to spend that night at our house to care for Simon and the kitties. I was also treated to a very romantic, very delicious dinner at The Capital Grille Restaurant that included a piece of cake larger than most countries.



Please excuse the iPhone picture quality - not sure what the glowing halo is around my head, but it's in about 5 other pictures we took that night. Maybe it's just that....my halo :)

My weekend was amazing. For the first time in a long time, I actually got to sleep in. No kitties walking across my head looking for breakfast at the crack of dawn. No Simon waking me up with his tug toy in my face. No barking, or meowing, or crying, or whining. Just me, Brian, and some Sunday morning snuggling.

What makes me a little sad (just a little) is that I'm home by myself tonight on my birthday. I've decided that next year I'm going to take the day off from work, get a massage, do some shopping, and celebrate me alllllllll day.

In the meantime, I was hoping you'd all leave me some birthday love in my comments section. You know, just to make me feel a little less alone tonight.

Thanks guys :)

4 Months

Tomorrow will be 4 months to the day that I became a Mrs.

To relive the magic of that weekend, swing by here and take a peek.

4 months?

Boy does time fly when you're having fun!

Engaged

I can remember the day like it was yesterday. We were praying that the rain would clear up and the sun would shine. Brian and I had a hard time deciding where we wanted to do our engagement photos. We really didn't have a "place." No beach that we frequented, no woods that we hiked, no urban landscape where we spent our time. We could have picked a number of beautiful locations, but it just didn't feel like us. We were afraid we would feel like transplants - two people in a picturesque backdrop that had no ties to that particular place.

It just would have been weird to us.

I struggled with all of the possibilities but then came to a conclusion while looking out my back door. It was autumn, and the little dead end street that we live on has leaves that blaze red, orange, and yellow when the season shifts from summer to fall.

"We can do it here," I thought. No beach, no mountainside, no tall city buildings. Just the street where we decided to make the commitment to spend forever together. The street where we started the family that is us, the dog, and the two cats. It's the street where we became homeowners, where we became neighbors, where we became part of a community.

Once I decided on the first location, my brain immediately went to the park down the street from my old apartment. Technically, this is where our relationship status first began. It's the park we drove by, and walked by, when we would leave our favorite hangouts to go back towards my place. What better way than to have pictures where it all began.....

So there you have it. The two locales where we chose to have our engagement photos and how we chose them. A little odd to most, but just right for us.

To check out our photos, head here, to Melissa Mullen Photography. She did an incredible job capturing me, Brian, and most importantly Simon. I can't thank her enough!

Enjoy!

Coffee!

I have developed a small obsession with my morning cup of coffee.

I am head over heals IN LOVE with my morning cup of coffee.

It's a little strange.

I own a bright red 12 cup coffee pot that I purchased at Target about a year ago for cheap money. I only make one cup each morning, because more than one cup would make me a jittery crazy lady. Brian begged for a Keurig when we were registering and I adamantly refused. I just couldn't stand parting with my red coffee pot.

I love my red coffee pot.

I recently figured out how to program my coffee pot to brew coffee prior to my alarm going off so I actually wake up to the yummy smell of fresh brewed coffee.

For those of you that haven't figured out this feature on your coffee making machine, I highly recommend you do so.

It's so awesome.

So back to the coffee....

Now that I've figured out this feature, I am completely obsessed with my morning cup of coffee. Prior to learning about this feature, mornings were dismal. My alarm would go off, I would shuffle to the kitchen accidentally kicking one of the animals along the way. I would fumble with the filters. I would fill the filters with coffee. I would add the water. And then would wait - groggy and annoyed that it was morning time.

Waiting. For the coffee. Wait, wait, wait.

Now that I've discovered how to operate the timer, mornings are like Christmas. My alarm goes off and the fragrant scent of French Vanilla wafts through the air. I shuffle to the kitchen like a crack head off to get a fix. No fumbling with filters and no measuring water or coffee. Just yummy hot coffee waiting to be poured into my oversized coffee mug (which SURPRISE has cats on it).

I've started to get really excited each night at the very thought of waking up to a full, hot, READY, pot of coffee.

So excited, I've been saying things like, "Mmmmm, can't wait to get up tomorrow morning and drink my coffee."

Brian is not enthused.

Brian thinks I'm crazy.

Brian still wants a Keurig.