Lesson 151: Christmas break with the Opfars

Tyler and I are in the midst of Christmas/New Years break :) It has been great having so much time to do stuff around the house and spend time with my honey. Tyler looks super excited in this picture.

While pregnant you have one job. Don't kill the baby. There are a lot of things to avoid, things to incorporate and things to deal with so I decided to get my hair done.... seemingly the only self-inflicted body change acceptable right now. This is right after I got the Ombre style done to my hair at the mall. I have wanted to get it for a while and I am really excited :). This was on a particularly frumpy feeling day so I was glad for the upgrade. Tyler is awesome and went to the mall with me. Afterwards we stopped by Applebees to say hi to his old work buddies.

This made me laugh. Applbees has a contest where if you go online and fill out a survey you could win $1500. I  feel bad for Canadians who have to complete a skills test before winning.

Max the chicken dog 

One of my big winter break projects is a cardboard playhouse. I have no idea why I am making it. It is pretty awesome. So far I have painted the interior and exterior, put in carpeting and tiles, and there is a little couch I made with fleece covered foam. This is an early on picture I took while painting the inside. It is a sea foam green (this picture makes is look gross). Ruby is looking in the window at me.  

Vintage pics of the early days of married life

Lesson 150: Not even the first snow can tame Ruby

Letting Ruby out into the backyard is quite possibly the most stressful experience of the day. She is nuts! When she senses someone walking towards the sliding glass door she will burst into fits of screeching "barks". I am not sure you can even call it barking. Ruby then performs galloping loops around the room occasionally slamming the door with her front paws until you release her into the wild.

Here is the twist.... you open the door and she won't leave! She will jump onto the patio, jump back into the house, jump onto the patio, and once again back into the house never slowing down long enough to be caught. Throughout this experience the yelps never stop! As I write about this I can't help but laugh because it is pretty funny. It is like living with a crazy lady who delights in yelling for no reason. It is just so important that you hear what she has to say.

Tyler and I have a joke that nobody can OWN Ruby. She simply allows us to live with her.

Ruby offering turn down service.

This is just a funny picture of Max putting up with me :)

And here is the morning of our first snow. As you can see Max was not made for cold.

This picture does not fully capture Ruby in all her madam barks-a-lot glory.

Ruby staying fit with her morning laps about the yard.

Ruby barking at me. She is a very passionate pug.

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Lesson 149: How is pug like a baby?

My dogs have been incredibly lucky as of late. A few changes in living arrangements and I am now in charge of letting my parent's dogs out to potty on my lunch break. This means that I get to cart my own dogs with me to Enumclaw everyday and drop them off at my parent's house. They love it. I feel the experience must be the dog equivalent of taking children to daycare. Each day I pack their leashes, a snack, their crate and we are on our way.  

Today, like all days, the dogs were let out for their run about the yard. After letting them back in the house I ate my lunch and sat down to watch a show. The rough housing between Max and Ruby began to escalate at which point I decided to intervene. Ruby is a creature familiar to the art of dodging. She knows that by standing on the opposite side of any large object I am helpless to the endless back and forth of I go left, Ruby goes left, I go right, Ruby goes right. This went on for about ten minutes. At one point Ruby was cornered. I began my decent on the cowering pug and reached out to snatch her up. Then came the awful realization that she was PEEING! Argh! Clamping onto her little body I quickly whipped her, and consequently her free flying pee, up into the air. Pee all down my pant leg. Pee all over my mom's fancy white carpet. It was one of those moments when you think to yourself, "maybe it would have been better to just let her pee..."

How is a pug like a baby? In my bank of things to remember for when the baby comes I will note to keep an extra pair of clothes for myself in the car for just such an occasion.

Lesson 148: "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

With having just ended such an incredible read, I had to share my find with the world. In reality, this book was not truly a "find" for me. A few years ago a Sunday school teacher used a story from "Outliers", in his lesson. This was what drew my attention when I saw the book title listed in the online library system.

***Did you know you can check books out for free on your kindle? Of course you did, I am the only person on the planer who took an entire year to figure this fact out.***

This is the point of the book though. Just as I would never have thought twice about reading a book called "Outliers" if I had not attended this particular Sunday school class, no man (or woman) reaches success by shear determination and genius alone. It is the combined efforts of ethnic background, personal heritage, parenting style, and just plain dumb luck of the birthday, that determine all the opportunities (or perhaps disadvantages) awaiting life. I found this to be such a fascinating book I think everyone should read it, if only for the fact we could then discuss it. I am quite positive Tyler gets tired of my endless recitations of interesting facts I learned from Mr. Gladwell.

At this point I would also like to give a shout out to my 12th grade social sciences teacher Mr. Marshall. There were a few stories in the book that I can remember him relating to the class that I found so interesting... even the second time around. I won't relate every story from the book. There are no spoiler alerts here. I will just end by stating this book draws the reader in from beginning to end. No person can read "Outliers" without coming away with a new outlook on success and our role with it.

Lesson 147: Day one of MATERNITY CLOTHES

I am not that far along. I am aware of this. I am in my 16th week right now. My grandma has been gathering thrift store maternity clothes for me for the past few weeks and they have been sitting in my dresser drawers. Today I decided to give them a try and I LOVE them! I completely understand why women would want to wear these far beyond their baby belly days.

I still fit into my normal clothes but I feel like I look less pregnant with maternity clothes than with normal clothes. Probably because they are much more forgiving than normal clothes.

The cartoon below is my visual representation because that is probably about how pregnant I look right now....

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Lesson 146: Hiding places and hanging out

Ruby does NOT like putting her harness. She never has. She slinks away into a corner and tries to make herself as small as possible to avoid the harness. The other day I thought I had her trapped in a corner but the ever resourceful Ruby was not to be captured that easily. She found the only hiding place she could think of...

Here is Ruby in front of our Christmas tree.

 And here is Max in front of the tree. We were all hanging out waiting for Tyler to get home.

 We saw this funny dog on one of our walks. He was not barking or growling, just sitting there watching us as we walked by. He was so cute!