Another Year

Yesterday was my birthday.  It was a fantastic day.  Most undoubtedly one of the best birthdays ever.  I can’t pin point exactly why.  I got up before the sun to start the day with a run with Back on My Feet.  It’s still hard getting up at 5, but so worth it to actually run in cool temperatures.  I had to spend some time at work, but my group got me the cutest cake ever.  I left early and pampered myself with a mani/pedi.  Up next was another Back on My Feet Event – the Blue Mile Brew Mile at Triton Brewing.  One more mile on the shoes.  Having a Wednesday birthday kind of stinks for celebrating, so we had a low-key dinner at Napolese, with plans to hit up The Libertine and Black Market on Saturday.  The night was capped off with a made-entirely-from-scratch chocolate peanut butter banana cake. (Yep, my husband bakes.)

I love birthdays.  I love my birthday, your birthday, any reason to celebrate a day all about you.  When I was a kid, I didn’t really like having a June birthday.  In elementary school I never got to bring treats on my actual birthday.  I got crammed into the last week of school with all the other summer birthday kids.  (See above re: “all about me”).  Then I realized how awesome it was to have a summer birthday pool party.  Then I didn’t mind a June birthday so much.

I’ve always firmly embraced my birthday, trying to maximize the waking hours of “my” day (18+ hours yesterday!).  I’ve never much thought about age.  I believe you are only as old as you feel.  So, it came as a bit of a surprise when a couple of weeks ago I started to feel some anxiety about the approaching day.  It’s not a milestone birthday – not a multiple of five or ten.  I didn’t understand it.

I turned 30 without much trepidation.  So why now?  I realized the last few years were pretty exciting: buying a new house, getting engaged, getting married, going on a honeymoon.  After all of those big events, it was time to start living life, settling in, growing old, being happy.  But this last year hasn’t really gone as planned.

I wouldn’t say that I have set goals for any given year, but as time progresses, I have expectations about what should be accomplished by certain stages of life.  I’m not saying that this past year is the first year that hasn’t gone as expected.  Far from it.  I’ve had years that were real shitters.  But it’s easier to shrug your shoulders and say, “That sucked, but life goes on,” when you’re in your 20s.  Not quite so easy in your mid-30s.

But for all the anxiety, once the day was finally here, I realized that it’s all OK.  Life doesn’t always go as planned, but it will go on.  Yes, I expected things to be different than they are now, but that doesn’t mean that I have to give up on getting to that place.  I also don’t need to feel bad or try to justify why I am where I am.  Where I am right now is actually pretty darn good, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Running With Dogs

We own a couple of pretty neurotic hyper dogs.  We know that exercise will help them behave better.  We talk about it all the time.  “We really need to get a pass to the dog park.” “We should really start walking them more.” “We should try running with them.”  Yet every week passes and we do none of those things.

They have really been atrocious the last few weeks.  They try to “protect” us from everything that goes by the front window, including other dogs, cats, squirrels, and the occasional piece of trash floating by (you know how dangerous trash can be).  As Spring nears and the temperature rises, we again discussed getting them outside.

Pete loves to walk.  He prances around with this big grin on his face.  Maggie, on the other hand, is so embarrassing.  She barks the entire time, but not normal barking.  Oh, no. That would be too easy.  No, she uses her high-pitched, shrill, “everyone look, my mommy is killing me” bark.  I know that it must echo for a five block radius.  She walks on her back legs.  She dives at the ground and rolls around to try to get the Gentle Leader off her face.  And she foams at the mouth.  That’s right.  It looks like she has rabies (or what I imagine a dog who has rabies to look like).  When we get home, her eyes are all bloodshot from tugging so hard, even though the Leader goes around her nose.

She’s such an anxious dog, she just doesn’t enjoy walking.  But we feel bad leaving her home if we take Pete.  We’ve talked about running with Pete ever since we got him.  He’s fast, and he’s strong.  We figured he could handle a few miles.  Maggie, maybe not so much. She’s also fast (not as fast as he is), but she always acts like she is dying after a mile long walk.  We get home and she huffs and puffs and lays around for the rest of the evening.  That is, after she drinks too much water too quickly and vomits everywhere.

We talked about it last night and decided we would just go for it this morning.  We were only running 4 miles and we could drop them off after two.  There is no excuse for us not getting them out.  I mean, how selfish are we that we run 20-30 miles a week but can’t take the dogs out?  We are bad dog parents.

We got up this morning and got ourselves ready.  There was no real game plan.  I decided I would take Maggie, even though the last time we ran together (over two years ago), she knocked me over and I fell flat on my face.  Since Pete is faster, I figured he would be a better fit with my husband.  We got them all harnessed up and we were ready to go.

We’d barely left the driveway and Maggie was already weaving back and forth in front of me.  I finally got her situated on my left side.  Pete took off like he always does, ears flapping in the wind, huge grin on his face. (For those of you who don’t think dogs smile, I can assure you that they do).  Maggie was yipping like she normally does, but not as loudly.  She decided to run along the sidewalk while I stayed in the street.  We hadn’t even made it two blocks when we came upon a dog in a yard.  He sort of growled at us. Oh, no, I thought.  Here we go.

Maggie did not even notice him.  No acknowledgement.  She just kept right on running.  I was stunned.  If we had been walking, she would have lunged at the dog, choked herself, and barked for the next three blocks.  I was beginning to think this just might work.

Around a half a mile, Pete and my husband were pulling ahead of us.  Maggie looked up and saw them and tried to speed ahead.  It was really pretty cute.  Unfortunately, I could not run that fast.  It already seemed like we were sprinting.  We took a short walking break around a mile.  We couldn’t believe how well everyone was doing.  Except for the humans, anyway.  The dogs were running about 20-30 seconds per mile faster than we usually run.  It was a good thing we planned to drop them off after only 2 miles.

At about a mile and half, Pete saw some squirrels he really wanted to go after.  Maggie saw him, and decided she better go after the squirrels too.  We made it past without anyone getting hurt (me included). When we were almost home, Maggie decided it was now time to dive into vegetation and try to get the Leader off.  We had a couple of instances were she ran on one side of a post and I ran on the other, and we bounced back at the end of the leash.  Again, everyone stayed upright.

As we neared our street, I tried to pick up the pace so Maggie and Pete could finish together.  I was pretty impressed with their athletic skills.  We dropped them off and headed back out for the last two miles, discussing how well that went considering what our walks are usually like.  Maggie didn’t have time to be anxious, and may have actually enjoyed herself.  There was never a question about Pete.  Now we have no excuses for not exercising them.  They can come with us on our runs, and I think as time goes by, they will be able to go farther.  Which will be a good thing, considering they weren’t even tired the rest of the day! (What we were hoping for, but did not achieve) ————–>

Market Mondays

Today is Monday, and that means going to get the groceries for the week.  It’s amazing how our grocery shopping strategy has evolved.  When it was just me, I would go to the grocery store probably once a week, maybe once every two weeks.  I did not plan meals.  I looked at the weekly ad circular and built my list based upon what sounded good that was on sale.  I bought a lot of pre-packaged stuff, stuff in boxes and packets, and frozen food items.  I suppose that was still better than eating fast food every night.

As a single guy, my husband would make multiple trips to the store in any given week and buy just enough for one meal at a time.  I can sort of understand that as the supermarket was literally in the front of his apartment complex.  But I really don’t like supermarkets, so I prefer to go as little as possible.

When we bought our house, we started shopping for groceries on a regular basis – usually Monday or Tuesday evening.  We were still shopping without a plan.  We were shopping at one of the chain supermarkets.  Our strategy literally was to walk around the store and pick out what looked good.  I’m not even sure that we made a list.  If we could smell the fish counter when we walked in (it was at the back of the store), fish was off-limits.  Fish was often off-limits.  (This ultimately became one of the main reasons we stopped shopping at this particular supermarket.  We eat fish at least once a week).

It didn’t take long to realize how much time we were wasting wandering around the store trying to put meals together.  We finally started sitting down before going to the store to create full menus for dinner four nights during the week (I am boring and always take the same thing in my lunch to work, so those items are no brainers).  We would pull recipes from many different sources – multiple cookbooks, foodnetwork.com, etc.  Once we started planning, we realized that the supermarket was not working.  We found that we weren’t able to find many of the things we were looking for.  It was defeating the purpose of the well-thought-out list!

We began shopping at the small, organic market not too far from our house.  I wish I could say that it is a local business, but it’s not.  At least it’s a small chain and it’s organic.  We had shopped there a few times before (it is very convenient) and at first felt like it was way more expensive than going to the supermarket.  However, we did some comparison shopping, and while some things are a bit more pricey (mostly name-brand boxed items like cereal, crackers, cookies…things I don’t need to buy anyway), we were able to buy fresh fish, meat and any kind of produce imaginable at very reasonable prices.  Plus, in theory, eating organic is healthier so it was worth the small added cost for the other things.

Last summer we started walking to get the groceries.  It’s only a few blocks so we can make it back home without anything spoiling.  We also made it part of our weekly schedule to go every Monday.  Sometime in mid- to late-summer, my husband essentially took over creating the grocery list.  We were really trying to watch what we were eating and lose some weight (we were getting married in October after all!).  We were still sharing the actual cooking.  Then I started teaching a summer school class at one of the colleges in town, and I was gone for all of Monday and Wednesday evenings.  He started making the list, doing all the shopping, and cooking on those nights.

I continued teaching in the fall and was still gone on Mondays and Wednesdays between class and my running group.  I am now truly spoiled because even though I am home most evening nights, he continues to make the list and do the majority of the cooking.  I offer to help, and most nights there is something I can do, but a lot of times I clean up the kitchen afterwards.  He truly enjoys cooking and I think has a secret dream of owning a restaurant one day (the two of us actually made all of the food for our wedding reception, which is a story for another day).

Tonight, like every other Monday, we got home from work and he started to put the list together.  We grabbed our reusable shopping bags and headed to the store.  It’s still too chilly to walk.  My second favorite part of heading to the market is sampling the tasty flavored coffee that is always on brew.  My favorite part is spending that time with my husband and being reminded of what a lucky girl I am.

Envisioning Adulthood

As I was driving to and from my hearings yesterday morning, I allowed my eyes to wander (just a bit!) to the farmland and houses dotting the scenery along the highway.  I started thinking about having two active dogs in the city with a postage stamp-sized yard.  One thought led to another (you know how that goes) and before long I was thinking back to my younger days and what I had originally envisioned my grown-up life to be like.

I don’t just mean jobs and careers.  I mean the whole package – family, kids, pets, cars, house.  Surprisingly, now that I have reached adulthood (or at least now that “society” deems me to be an adult as I am in my 30s), I haven’t really thought about whether my teenage visions matched what had actually come to be.  I thought about it, and was a little bit shocked that my ideals had indeed shifted over time and I’d barely even noticed.  What happened to my self-awareness?!

When I was younger, my visions centered on family.  I wanted to get married, although I had no real time line.  I wanted to have kids – 3 of them.  I imagined a big, old, rambling farmhouse with acres of land for the kids to play on, and animals to roam over (cats, dogs, and at least one horse).  I suppose I planned on working, but something fun and creative.  Truthfully, most of me hoped I could be a stay at home mom.  I write that with some hesitation as I have always prided myself on advocating for gender equality, career women, and shared responsibilities.  Not that you can’t have gender equality and shared responsibilities, and even a career, if you stay at home, but once I got to college I had decided I was going to “have it all.”  A career, a family, a Lexus.  Don’t worry – I have since realized what a huge waste of money luxury vehicles are (I currently drive a 7-yr-old Honda).  I never once uttered aloud that I wanted to stay home.

Perhaps it had to do with my first serious boyfriend.  I was a sophomore in college when we met.  He was a bit possessive, a bit more jealous, and essentially told me if we got married I would stay at home with our kids.  Hmmm…what was the point of this business degree I was working towards?  That relationship ended after about two years, but during that time I became more determined to have a successful career.  Did I ever stop to define success?  No.  Perhaps that would have helped.

And now, almost fifteen years after graduating from high school, I’ve got the career  (it’s not what I would consider successful because I despise it), and I am married, but nothing else matches those old visions.  I met and married my perfect match much later in life than expected.  As mentioned, I’m in my 30s and no kids yet.  Yes, I’ve realized having three children is no longer a realistic plan.  I have a dog (likely soon to be two), but my cats now live with my mom and I only get to see horses once a year at the state fair.  I live in the city and share a driveway with my neighbors.  See above reference to size of yard.  Oh, I’m sorry, we do have possums and raccoons.

So, what was the point of these random musings in the car?  I’m not entirely sure yet.  While the specific details of my envisioned adulthood are distinctly different, have my underlying ideals really changed that much?  Family is still most important to me.  My focus now needs to be on making it a top priority.  Part of getting to that point is making sure I am a happy and satisfied me.  Now we’ve come full circle back to repaving the career path.  In the meantime, I’ll be satisfied with sitting in the couch, blogging on my new MacBook Pro, watching my sleeping husband and dog(s), in my big, old, rambling brick house in the city.  And enjoy that, for the time being, we were able to go out for a delicious dinner without having to find a babysitter.

You are SO Grounded

I really was a pretty good kid growing up.  I rarely got in trouble.  I always made good grades.  I was in sports and other extra-curricular activities.  I was “mature for my age” (whatever that actually means) and found that I had more in common with people older than me than other kids my age.  When I was 16, I started working at a coffee shop in our local mall.  After an afternoon of going into nearly every store in the mall and being told either that they were not hiring or that you had to be 18 to work there, I dejectedly walked into the coffee shop.  I probably hadn’t even considered going in there when I first started on the job hunt because let’s face it, I was 16, I didn’t drink coffee.  I went in there once at year around Christmas to buy coffee beans for my parents.  Anyway, I sadly asked how old you had to be to work there.  Today, I’m not certain whether the answer was 16 or how old are you.  Regardless, I got hired.

Everyone was older than me, and most of them were students at the nearby state university.  I got along with everyone really well and when I was 17, I was the youngest person to receive a key to the shop and allowed to open/close the store.  I was so cool.  A new girl started to work at the store the beginning of my senior year of high school (or around that time).  I was still 17 years old.  I can’t remember how old she was – for some reason I’m thinking 24, but that seems too old.  Probably 22 or 23.

We got along fantastically despite the age difference.  She was everything I aspired to be.  Cute, but not to the point of intimidation.  She was happy, outgoing, fun, uninhibited, smart.  We started hanging out some outside of work.  We worked out together, going on two-hour walks around campus and talking about everything and nothing.  She took me to a few college parties.  How awesome was I?  I felt like the kids at school considered me to be a nerd, straight-laced, uncool.  I was showing them.  (It was high school – I cared what they though.  I often wonder how I will convince my own children that in the grand scheme of things it really does not matter…that’s for another day, I suppose).

It came to be spring of my senior year.  There was a big campus-wide event going on one April weekend.  I think almost every university has something similar to this in the spring.  A campus-wide competition that provides an excuse for everyone to party.  Fraternity parties, house parties, off campus parties.  You name it, it was going on.  Having lived in the town since I was 4, I knew about the event, but it never occurred to me that campus was not a place that an underage person would want to be during that weekend.  I’m not certain I even knew what the excise police was.

I don’t remember what I told my mom we were doing, although I’m pretty sure she knew I was with my co-worker.  Big party weekend or not, I wasn’t supposed to be going to college parties.  My co-worker’s sister and her boyfriend were in town, so I probably said we were just going to dinner or something.  I remember getting ready at her apartment, and I distinctly remember making a conscious decision not to take my ID with me.  I don’t remember why I thought that was a good idea.  We drove over to campus, and drove up to this house party…with a live band!  Awesome!  I’d never been to a party with a live band.  Never occurred to me that the party with the blaring live musing and pounding bass would serve as a beacon to the cops.

I’m not sure how long we’d been at the party.  I recall trying to pass myself off as a college student to this guy who came up to talk to us and giggling uncontrollably.  I remember the band playing Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics (although it was 1996 so it could have been the Marilyn Manson version).  I remember having to go the bathroom and recognizing that there was no closet to serve as a hiding place if necessary.  I’ll admit it – I’d had a couple of drinks.  I’m guessing wine coolers because I don’t think I could force myself to choke down beer at that point in my life.  (Oh, how things change.) What happens next?  You guessed it.  The cops bust in with their spotlights, the music abruptly dies away, and I was standing there like a deer in headlights.  Shit, I was going to be in trouble.

I quickly looked around but there was no place to hide.  I shuffled into line with everyone else.  My co-worker’s sister, who had been drinking peach schnapps or something before we left, stepped up to the portable breath test and blew…0.00%!  How did that happen?  Hmmm…the wheels start clicking.  It’s my turn and I’ve never been so scared in my life.  The officer asks me if I’ve been drinking.  What comes out of my mouth?  The truth?  Of course not.  For some reason, I said no.  I don’t know why.  It really was not intentional.  Regardless, the breathalyzer kept me honest.  0.03%  Uh-oh.  He asked me how old I was.  17, I stammered.  Seventeen, geeze, he says (the seventeen was all drawn out, so disapproving).  Where’s your ID?  I don’t have it.  Go stand over there.

My friend left to get my ID.  I sat on the front porch.  I had plenty of company, but I was the youngest.  The wheels started turning again.  Was there anyway to get through this without my mother finding out?  I sat on the front porch, shivering.  This guy with long, braided hair with bells and beads at the end of them was dancing around to a tune only he could hear.  I was calling him bell boy in my head.  However, he was kind enough to loan me his jacket.  The officer finally made it to me and took down all my information and filled out a ticket.  I was actually lucky that it was such a big party weekend because the police were too busy busting parties to take people to the station.  Any other weekend and I would have been calling my mom that night.  But this night, I took my ticket, gingerly folded it into my pocket, gave bell boy back his jacket, and we moved on to a fraternity party.  Yeah, I was that smart.

Remarkably, the rest of the night was uneventful.  I went to work the following morning.  My mom was also working at her part-time job at the mall.  She came in on her break.  She could tell by the look on my face that something was wrong.  At first, she was concerned.  I pushed my ticket across the counter to her.  She looked at it, read it, and stormed out of the store, steam coming out her ears.  I drove home at the end of my shift with much trepidation.  I could not imagine my punishment.  It was worse than I expected.  I couldn’t go to prom!  No!  How could she do this to me?!  I had never been to prom!  This was THE high school experience!  AAARRRGGGHHH!

After a few days, she calmed down.  I could go to prom, but NO going out afterwards, and NO day after trip to the amusement park.  OK, I could deal with that (it ended up raining and was so cold, so I didn’t miss much!).  I did have to meet with a juvenile prosecutor and go to this one day seminar about alcohol and drug abuse.  The worst part about that was giving up a Saturday and having to pay the $60 fee out of my own pocket.  But I’ll be honest…I waived that ticket around at school like it was a badge of honor.  Because for a few days (and only a few days), everyone looked at me differently.  I, for that brief period, was a bad ass.

What’s a Pen Pal?

I was thinking the other day about how many fascinating and supportive people I have met through the world of blogging, and I was amazed at how the internet and technology has simplified communication and shorted distances.  I have met people from across the U.S., Europe and Australia.  Interactions such as this would have never happened fifteen or twenty years ago (or maybe even less than that).  Or would they have?

I started thinking about my pen pal from Germany, and I wondered if “kids these days” even know what that term means.  She and I started writing when I was ten and in the 5th grade.  My dad used to travel internationally quite a bit for his job and would be gone for a week or two or three at a time.  Most of the trips took him to Germany, and he spent a lot of time with my pen pal’s father.  When my dad came home from one of his trips, he had a letter (an actual, hand-written letter on beautiful stationary) from the oldest daughter.  She wanted to be pen pals and introduced herself and asked questions about me.  From that point forward, we were pen pals!

I always looked forward to getting her letters, and would quickly write back so as to shorten the time between her replies.  We talked about music, school, siblings and boys.  We wrote very consistently through the time I was in high school.  She was a few years older than me and was off to higher education.  Our letters became fewer and farther between.  One day, I got an email from her.  I was so excited!  While email will never replace the personal letter, I thought we would be able to communicate instantaneously.  Somehow, that never quite took off.  We actually spoke on the phone once.  Her boyfriend was in the midwest for an internship one summer, and we made arrangements to meet.  I’m still not sure what happened, but we missed each other and never met.

We have both moved, gotten married, etc. etc. and have lost touch.  Sadly, and strangely, technology did not help is to keep in contact with each other.  I search for her every so often on Facebook or generally on Google, but I haven’t come across her yet.  My grandmother had a pen pal that she wrote to for forty or so years.  I can’t remember now where she was from, but they actually got to meet after all of those years of writing.  How cool is that?  I still have faith that my pal and I will meet some day.  Hopefully I’ll travel to Europe at some point in my life, right?

So, was it as easy to communicate with people from so far away back in the day?  No, but it was possible.  Maybe not at the same volume (could you imagine the postage for letters sent to all of your subscribers or the bloggers you read?  Although if we were all using postage that often it would still be a lot cheaper…), and maybe not as quickly, but it could be done.  Some part of me misses the joy of receiving a handwritten letter (can you remember the last time you received an actual letter – not just a card for your birthday or a holiday), but I’m grateful for the advancements in technology.  I’m grateful for the world of blogging and the awesome people I have met and discovered.  I’m also grateful that I know what a pen pal is.

I’ll leave you with one final thought – remember chain letters?  What did you do with them?

Dear Me From Ten Years Ago

It is about six weeks into second semester of your first year of law school.  You have received most if not all of your grades and disappointment does not adequately describe how you are feeling.  Good grades always came easy in undergrad, and this is a new feeling for you.  It’s OK – your grades really don’t matter.  I know that isn’t much consolation, especially considering all of your classmates are now starting to talk about summer associate interviews and job offers.  The hallways are abuzz with discussion about who in the class is in the top ten percent, who is number one and who is number two, and can you believe so and so is that smart?  All you know is that they aren’t talking about you.  Get used to it, because this is going to happen every time grades come out.  You think it would get old.  It doesn’t.

You are starting to have doubts about going to law school in the first place.  It’s nothing like you expected.  Explore those doubts.  Figure out where they are coming from.  I won’t overtly encourage you to quit law school, mainly because I know that would be pointless.  You won’t quit.  That’s just not how you operate.  But I strongly encourage you to explore other opportunities within the law school program.  A traditional law firm career is not for you, which you already know.  Take advantage of career services and find out about what you can do with your degree that doesn’t involve the actual practice of law.  Supposedly there are a lot of options out there.  I’m hoping by tell you this now, before you get too far into the process, you will find out what those options are.  It’s too late for me.  I have yet to come across such a job.

Seriously think about a joint masters program with the business school or any other dual degree programs that they offer.  I know that guy from the entrepreneurship club told you not to get too many degrees from one school, but he was also sitting at the bar and drinking.  I’m telling you from my experience, any additional education will help you when you get to where I am.  Think about an overseas study program.  Don’t worry about the cost.  Don’t worry about being too far away from your mom or your boyfriend.  Think about what a great opportunity it would be for you – one that will not present itself again.  Consider taking classes that seem interesting to you, not because they are going to be on the bar exam.

Speaking of the boyfriend – dump him.  I know that right now everything seems wonderful, but deep down you know that’s not true.  You know something is not quite right.  He is still mad at you because you got into law school and he didn’t.  He will harbor that anger for years and it will manifest itself in very unhealthy ways.  Get out now.  The fact that you are not making any new friends at the law school doesn’t seem that important right now because you have him and all of your undergrad friends who are on the five-year plan.  Next year, it will be a big deal.  Everyone else is going to graduate and move on.  It will just be you and him and things will start to go downhill fast.  Don’t ignore the signs.  Be strong.  You will be OK alone.  Trust me – it will be better in the long run.

As you ultimately start to think about what you will do after graduation, know that the $85,000 salaries promised during career information seminars are not as abundant as you are led to believe.  Think about leaving the midwest.  Think about Washington, D.C.  You will come to love D.C., but by the time you do it will be too late to seriously consider living there.

I suppose I should be somewhat cautious about my advice to you.  We both know I believe everything happens for a reason.  The actions taken ten years ago led you down the path to where you are now.  There were many stumbles along the way, but life as you will know it in ten years will be pretty darn good for the most part.  So, dearest me from ten years ago, forget everything I just told you.  Do all of the things you did the first time, and I promise to help you through the rough spots.  But here’s one safe piece of advice – take a photography class.  You can thank me later.

A New Addition to the Family?

The other day a friend of mine forwarded an email from one of her friends about finding their dog a new home.  It seems that her friends are expecting their third child very soon, and are having difficulty dealing with their very active hound mix, Pete.  As the owner of an incredibly hyper dog, I can certainly sympathize, and stories like this break my heart.  I would be devastated if I had to give up my Maggie,  but I do worry about what will happen when we have kids.  Despite all of this, I saw the picture of Pete and I felt like we had to do something.  He just looked so sweet, and has a face similar to Maggie’s.  The description of Pete reminded me so much of Maggie’s behavior.  I felt that if anyone should welcome Pete into their home, it should be someone who knows how what to expect from an overly excitable dog.

I certainly had anxieties, and made it clear to Pete’s current parents that we would have to make sure that he and Maggie get along (she is very particular about other dogs), and that my husband is not allergic to him.  Maggie’s long hair doesn’t bother him, but short-hair dogs can bother him.  I also keep imagining two Maggies tearing through the house and barking at people walking on the street in front of the house.

This afternoon we left the house at 3:30 to go pick Maggie up from the kennel.  It’s over thirty minutes to the kennel, and then we were going straight to Pete’s house – clear on the other side of town.  She’s always a bit worked up when we pick her up.   I was hoping exhaustion would overcome her before we got there.  No such luck.  She was pacing back and forth in the back seat and leaping at every car we passed.  We arrived at Pete’s house and Maggie bounded out of the car, having no idea what she was in for.  As we walked up the driveway and introduced ourselves to Pete’s mom, we could see him leaping up so that his head and the majority of his body were visible in the door.  Yep, just like Maggie.

We got into the backyard, and Maggie did her typical growl when Pete tried to sniff her.  As soon as I got her off the leash, they circled each other, did some barking, and then started chasing each other.  It was awesome!  Pete is super fast, and they were tearing all around the yard, flipping up snow in their wake.  Amazingly, they never knocked down either of the two little boys.  Maggie was surprisingly gentle with both of them.  Pete was so sweet and friendly.  They played together for about over 45 minutes and we asked all of the questions we could think of.  We decided the next step would be to have some extended time with Pete – perhaps this coming weekend.  There’s no other way to know if Pete will really fit into our family unless he spends a few days with us.

I still am a bit apprehensive.  I am not certain that my husband is 100% sure about even doing the weekend visit, although I keep asking him and he says he’s OK with it.  I wonder if I’m insane even thinking about getting a second dog that is too much for a family with small kids to handle when we are planning on having kids in the next year or so.  I am trying to convince myself that we will be able to spend more time with him, spend more time exercising him (he could become my running buddy), etc. etc.  I also wonder if that is incredibly naive of me.  I guess we’ll see how next weekend goes.  Wish us luck!

Places I Love in the City: City Market

 I’m borrowing a bit from my photo blog post, but it’s getting late and I couldn’t come up with any great ideas tonight.  So, I thought I would share my love of the City Market.  This half-block facility is across the street from my office.  It is full of local vendors with a focus on food (what more could I ask for?!).

I love to support local businesses, and the Market’s popularity has fluctuated over the past few years.  The city has put quite a bit of money into renovating it, and it’s getting ready to undergo another round.  But so far, things look promising.  A lot of new vendors have opened up shop, including a pretzel shop and a tap room (although I have not tried either…probably not a good idea to have beer at lunch).  Vendors set to open include a French crepe place (mmm…they already have daily specials listed), and a soup bar.

I spend at least one lunch a week at the Market.  Sometimes I patronize the shops, but most of the time I just eat my lunch from home, do some work, and people-watch.  I know it’s lame to work through lunch, but at least I get out of the office for a bit (and see yesterday’s post).  I love the architecture of this building (not that I know the first thing about architecture…I just know what I like).  It’s a brick building, but inside there is all of this intricate metalwork.  The building is probably three stories, but completely open with second story perimeter balcony seating.  There are high windows that allow natural light to stream in.  It’s cozy even when it’s nasty out (like today).

The Market is even better in the summer.  There is a large brick patio that takes up probably a quarter of the half-block, with even more seating.  I spend more lunches over there in the summer.  On Fridays there is live entertainment over the lunch hour – always something interesting and unique.  On Wednesdays, the Market sponsors a farmer’s market.  It is one of the best farmer’s markets I have been to.  Fresh veggies, local meat, flowers, and baked goods (including dog treats).  Oh, and kettle corn.  I love kettle corn.  OK, I love all food.

Since we’ve had such terrible weather, I have been lamenting (well, cursing, really) living in the mid-west.  I am hoping that focusing on some of the great places in the city will help the rest of the winter months fly by!

A Perfect Sunday

Oh, to have a perfect Sunday every week.  Unfortunately, I can’t recall my last perfect Sunday.  It probably involved a long weekend that didn’t require me to go to work on Monday.  I frequently suffer from Sunday night blues, and some Sundays they come on earlier than others.  It just depends on what the week holds for me.  But a perfect Sunday would entail the following:

First and foremost – a perfect Sunday must be a warm day (hard to come by this time of year). 

I love to start Sundays with an early morning run – shoes on and running by 7:30 (I guess that’s not that early).  Sunday mornings are always reserved for a longer run.  I have found that by dedicating this time solely to running, I have a better run.  I feel good.  I can go for 8 miles without feeling tired.  I get my workout done and out of the way so that the rest of the day is mine.

Actually, there is one other reason why I love starting out the perfect Sunday with a run.  The next part of the perfect day is having a huge breakfast.  If I’ve run 8 miles, I don’ t have to feel bad about eating pancakes, eggs, toast, etc. etc. (breakfast is my favorite meal).  Usually we will walk to a neighborhood restaurant.  There are about 3 that we rotate between.  Although recently we have taken to making whole wheat blueberry pancakes at home.

The remainder of the day will entail walking to the nearby neighborhood village to do some shopping and getting ice cream from the local ice cream shop.  The village is about a mile and a half or so away, so the 3-mile round trip walk justifies the ice cream!  I always take my camera along with me because we have many scenic routes to choose from and we run across all kinds of wildlife (I swear one time we saw a rat next to the canal.  I did not have my camera during that walk.)

A perfect Sunday would include an evening round of golf.  During the warm months, we have sunlight until 8 or 9 pm (or later once we reach June).  I am a very new golfer.  I am not good, and I am very self-conscious.  I have no problems going to the driving range when there is a crowd, but I cannot actually golf if there are groups stacking up behind me.  I will always completely miss the ball on my tee-shot.  I will then get flustered and once I make contact it will go maybe 5 yards.  So embarrassing.  We have learned that one of the local courses isn’t too busy on Sunday evenings, so I like to go whenever possible.

At the end of a perfect Sunday, which so far has been unattainable, I would not dread going to work the next day.  I would look forward to the week ahead because I would love what I do.  The twilight hours of Sunday could approach and my spirits would not sink along with the sun.  This is really the most important requirement for a perfect Sunday.  I hope that by the time the weather turns warm, a complete perfect Sunday will be a reality.