Friday, February 26, 2010

Give Yourself to Love

By Kate Wolf

Come friends all gather round
There’s something I would say
What brings us together here
As blessed as all today
Love has made a circle
that holds us all inside
Strangers are as family
Loneliness can die

You must give yourself to love,
If love is what you’re after
Open up your heart to the tears and laughter
Give yourself to love, give yourself to love

I walked these mountains in the rain,
I learned to love the wind,
Been up before the sunrise
To watch the day begin

I always knew I would find you
Though I never did know how
Like sunshine on a cloudy day,
You stand before me now

Give yourself to love, if love is what you’re after
Open your hearts to the tears and laughter
Give yourself to love, give yourself to love

Love is born in fire,
It’s planted like a seed
And love can’t give you everything
But it gives you what you need

And love comes when you are ready,
Love comes when you are afraid
It will be your greatest teacher,
The best friend you have made

Give yourself to love, if love is what you’re after
Open your hearts to the tears and laughter
Give yourself to love, give yourself to love

You must give yourself to love,
If love is what you’re after
Open up your heart to the tears and laughter

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Too Much Mental Illness

It was a good week at Trivia, how could it not be, we got a Harry Potter question!!!

Here are some more trivia questions for your viewing pleasure! (again, only the ones that I got right/helped get right).

What year did Coldplay release their first Album?
What type of lens sends light rays away from one another?
What is the name of the first Harry Potter book, as released in the UK?
What movie is the quote “Open the Shuttle Door, Hal” from?

Other than that, things chug along. Puppy has not managed to escape her crate again, yet. I am sure she will be very happy that we both stay home tonight. The reading challenge for spring has been released. It starts March 1st. There are plenty of books that I am looking forward to reading, but there are a few I am not looking forward to (and I probably won’t even get to these since I never finish). There are all sorts of mental health awareness days and months in the Spring, so there is always challenges based on that. This year there are two challenges, read a book featuring a character that has a developmental delay, and read two books, one of which features a character that has a mental illness and one of which is non-fiction about that same mental illness. Since starting my job here at the bureau of disability, I deal with mental illness everyday. It has very much raised my awareness. It is now so common for me to see mental illness in books where before I just saw interesting characters that it is ridiculous. To search out a book where this is the case is not so interesting for me. On top of that, I have read two of the most popular books concerning developmental delays - The Curious Incedent of the Dog at Nighttime and The Memory Keepers Daughter. I did not enjoy either and the latter was absolutely horrid. If anyone has any recommendations for these challanges, that would be great.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Only Tuesday?

Yesterday evening turned out to be crazy. We had nothing planned but DH called me at work and said his coworkers were going out to dinner and we should join them, and it sounded like fun. I was supposed to meet them at the bar. I got the dogs walked and played with River some, crated her up, and headed out. When I backed out of the garage my garage door opener would not work. This has been happening intermittently for no apparent reason. So, I got out of the car and went to close is manually. There is no handle on the outside of the door of course, and in trying to close it I managed to get my finger stuck between two of the slats as it came down and crush my finger. It hurt like crazy and a glance revealed that I had basically managed to remove my finger print - peel back the top few layers of skin on the pad of my right middle finger. I did not think it was bad enough for the urgent care, but I was also unsure if I could clean it (the skin was folded under and there was dirt in it), without some sort of pain relief. I called DH and he came home, though by the time he got there it was mostly for moral support as I had decided to try and deal with it at home. (Also, thanks Mom for the moral support!! Whenever I get hurt I call my parents since my Mom is a nurse and Dad is a sports physiology professor). I managed to get it cleaned out, then we headed back to the bar to see DH’s coworkers. I have only met them once or twice. It was fun, though some of the spouses that were their were a bit too vocal and offensive for my liking. The vast majority were fun to hang out with.

We got the second surprise and part of the craziness when we got home. Remember when I said I left River in the crate? Well, when we got home River was running free and there was various chewed up items piled in the center of each room, as if she had gone searching for little things in the corners. And of course she pooped in the house as well. Luckily nothing she got was too valuable, she seems to have similar cheap tastes as Grim when it comes to chewing things up. We went upstairs expecting to find the crate door popped open somehow. We got up there and the crate was upside-down several feet from where I left it, with the door still seemingly closed. Upon closer inspection, the door was actually only half latched, the top latch having not snapped into place. As far as we can guess, River figured out the top half was not latched and in her attempts to push through it flipped the crate, then somehow squirmed through the still mostly-closed door, and had her way with the house. She is quite the little Houdini, and we will be using the locking feature from now on.

This morning my finger is still very tender, I am keeping a close watch on it, and it is slowing down my work - typing and using the mouse, etc.

Trivia update – I am going to trivia tonight and never had a chance to share my victories from last week! Pixel is a combination of picture element. The questions I got right last week were:

(1) Who played Romeo in the 1996 movie remake of the classic story?
(2) What video game features a main character named Snake?
(3) What type of bird has varieties named burrowing, little, and Eurasian Eagle?

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Alternative Names

River's name is staying River. But, seversal alternative names have come up since we got her on Saturday:

Stinky - she really needs a bath, she smells like pound and everything that comes with being caged 23/7. She unfortunately cannot have one until atleast Sunday because she was spayed last week, and as much as I want to bathe her first thing Sunday morning, but the incision does not look perfect (does not look horrible either) so I am probably going to hold off until her vet appt on Thursday clears her. She really stinks though. A lot.

Poopy - I never knew that such a little animal could produce such a large quantity of poop. Maybe it just seems like more because it is on our carpet instead of outside (still working on the house training). DH estimates this dog is 30-50% poo.

Sneaky - With the house training, the whole technique is to watch her carefully, and if we see her going (or more likely, thinking about going), then we interupt her and take her outside. When we pay close enough attention, this has been working. However, if you let up your attention for 30 seconds, you turn back and there is a puddle or pile.

Houdini - We realized fairly quickly she was having some seperation anxiety. She hates to be apart from us! It seemed like being crated added to this anxiety so we tried to come up with an alternative. In seperate occasions she managed to open the bathroom door, jump over a 3 foot baby gate, open a bathroom door that had a chair up against it, and most impressively, get over 5 feet of baby gate (one ontop of the other) and close the bathroom door somehow in the process. She is being crated again now (at least until she is house broken), and she seems much happier being crated in a solid crate in our bedroom instead of a mesh crate in the living room. (this is also where she sleeps for now).

She continues to be adorable, despite all this trouble. I am looking forward to her being off restrictions from her surgery so we can try to engage her and Grim in play, start leash training her, and make her smell pretty!! (or at least not horrendous!!)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Full House

Introducing our new puppy, River!




River is a 5-Month old mutt from Franklin County Dog Shelter. She was labelled a dane mix, but it seems like Catahoula Cur (or Catahoula Leopard Dog) is much more likely the dominant breed, though she is a mutt for sure. She has black, grey, and brown in her coat. She is laid back and submissive, she sleeps A LOT. She loves to be cuddled up on or next to one of us. We expect her to grow to be 50-70lbs. Her name is based on Texas Hold'em. In Texas Hold'em, two cards are kept in your hand and five are played on the table. The first three played on the table are the flow, the fourth is the turn, and the fifth card that completes your hand is the River. River has completed our full house - we now have three cats and two dogs. Our "hand" of pets is complete, and just how I have always wanted it.

So, getting River is the completion of one of my plans, and the start of another. One thing on my "bucket" list, is raising a puppy. Having been a stray and lived in the shelter (we do not know if she had a prior home), River is not house trained or obedience trained. She also, it would appear, is suffering from seperation anxiety, resulting in quite the mess when we try to crate her. These are issues we will have to work on, but when we are home she is very sweet, easily redirectable, and wants to please. Also, ironically enough, there is no doubt in my mind that the puppy will actually assist my efforts to "slow down" as discussed in an earlier post. I will think twice before scheduling too many nights away, at least until she is potty trained!!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Olympics: Day 2

Obervations from the Olympics on the first day of active competition:

(1) It is hard to get into watching the luge when someone just died on the track and that is absorbing the coverage, when the track is not being raced the way it was designed (rightfully so, for safety), and when it is a hard sport for me to get excited about anyways because its like "flash of guy going past... flash of guy going past..." etc.

(2) It is really sad that the Canadian women's hockey team beat the Slovakian's 18-0. I know its hard to play defense without playing offense, but couldn't they have slowed it down a bit??

(3) The men's speed skating finals (was that 1500M?? I dont know), was awesome competition.

(4) It is fun and funny watching women's moguls. Fun because it's a highly entertaining sport with great speed and tricks, where you can see the different between who is good and who is great. Funny because you could just as easily take bets on how many knee surgeries each contestant has had as on the results. Seems having multiple knee surgeries is perfectly normal in the sport (one women had SIX), and that is unsurprising given what it looks like.

I love the Olympics :-)

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Snowpocalypse

The answer to last week's trivia question, if you are curious, is that OPEC stands for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. I know, you are all thrilled with this information.

The big news in Columbus this week is the weather. We had snow over the weekend, as I reported - around a foot in most places. Then, a second storm came through that they said would drop another 8 inches from Tuesday morning to Wednesday evening. It did not pan out to be nearly as severe as predicted, but a lot of people got time off because of it, which is nice. I was not one of them. We did get about 4-5" on Tuesday during the day, but virtually none overnight. After I shovelled on Tuesday night I made a snow-lama (or as DH calls it, a Snowpaca). It was supposed to be a horse, but looks much more Lama-esque. I also made a nice snow angel. In that sense I am glad it did not snow more on Wednesday, because my art is still there for the neighborhood to enjoy. We might be the only house that does not have kids with snow art.

I went back to Trivia last night, since the weather permitted. I was very successful! I actually made significant contributions on two questions, lets see if anyone can answer them:
(1) What two words were combined to form the word "Pixel" ?
(2) What Animal is the character Meeko in the Disney Movie Pocahantas?

Time is rushing by here. We are seriously considering getting another dog (by considering, I mean we plan to get another dog, a puppy to be precise, its just a matter of finding the right one). I need to make a conscious effort to slow down. I turned down an invite for tonight, and thats a start. Its hard because in general I want to slow down, but when I think of each individual event I go to on a regular basis (book club, classics book club, nestie dinner, classic movies nights, beading with J, trivia, project runway, etc), I do not want to give any of them up. It is a matter of priorities that I am still sorting out.

I do have an ambitious reading list to finish by the end of February (the end of the winter challenge) - Ulysses being the most challenging part. I also want to read or finish reasding Living History, Extras, Picasso, Cry the Beloved Country, and as many others as possible. Wish me luck!!

Monday, February 8, 2010

"Super" Bowl

More like "stinky" bowl. LOL. No, it was a fine game. I was rooting for the Colts and they did not make it. I am not sure what happened. At least the food at our superbowl party was good - Sugar Pie (an Indianapolis tradition), Beignets (new orleans donuts - pronounced Ben-yay. I hate french), buffalo chicken dip, cookies, chips with salsa and queso, cake, and plenty of drink options.

It was a fun weekend but it FLEW by. My sister and her husband were visiting. We watched two movies while they were here that did not do as well in theaters as was expected: Year One and Burn After Reading. I thought Year One was pretty funny, and I am not sure why it did poorly. I enjoyed it. Burn After Reading, now that is a different story entirely. Its like they wanted to do something along the attitude of "Snatch", but failed miserably to capture the fun. It was slow moving, and then randomly violent and unpleasant. The funniest character was Brad Pitt, by far. He was hilarious, seriously who knew Brad Pitt could play a complete numbskull, but he did not stick around the whole movie. Not worth seeing, at all.

We also went roller blading, which I really enjoyed. I wish we could do it more. Maybe in the summer we will try to, but of course that won't be as nice of a surface as the indoor place. The indoor place has too many rules though. The fun part about skating is having DH do tricks and teach me to do things, but at this place he could not even skate backwards. I understand the rule is for other peoples safety, but it stil ruins the fun.

We went out to eat. I went to Cladagh's for the first time. The decor and drinks were wonderful, but the food itself was somewhat disapointing - a shepards pie about commiserate with what I can do at home, and somewhat flavorless corn beef and cabbage roles. But, the company was excellent (and the Irish Coffee!!). O'Shaunessey's remains my favorite irish pub in town.

Laurelyn inspired us to pull out the Super Nintendo that has been stored in the basement since we moved. It was a lot of fun watching her play and remined me again how many modes of entertainment we have and do not use. I pulled out the N64 as well. I definitely need to go back to all of these things I already own and enjoy instead of obsessing over buying new things.

I only have one other comment on the weekend. I have read several times that one sign of compatability for couples is having similar energy and activity levels (a couch potato and obsessive compulsive athlete are not likely to be compatible). This showed that my sister and I chose the right spouses with respect to one another, judging by this rule. Her and her husband have so much energy and motivation it put us to shame!! This is not a bad thing on either end, just an observation. Multiple times during the weekend found her and her husband doing something productive - cleaning, hanging blinds, etc, while DH and I stood/sat around and watched, or something similar. My sister can clean and organize until the cows come home, my tolerance is about an hour or two before I become unwilling to deal with the task. We came out of the weekend with a clean fridge, reorganized food cabinets, a clean kitchen, new blinds hung in the kitchen and the guest room, the counter fixed, and a cabinet door that has been broken since we moved in (approaching two years) reattached. We win.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Geez - Slow Down!!

Not to give just another list of what I did post, but that's exactly what I have time for and what I am going to do:

Monday night: dinner with the nestie girls at Aladdin's, tasty and good company!
Tuesday night: beading with a friend. I swore I was not going to make something with orange in it. I made a blue, yellow, and orange necklace. LOL
Wednesday: Trivia!! I only could answer one question - what does OPEC stand for - your turn to answer this one!! I also know how to spell evadable, but no one listened to me.
Thursday: Coffee w/a friend from the econ department, nice seeing her (its been 5 months!!) Then my sister and her husband came into town!!
Friday: Tried out Quaker State for the first time. It was more expensive then I thought it would be, the food was decent. I would go back on all you can eat wing night, and I think my family would love the decor. (over us a motorcycle had just crashed sideways through a glass window). Then we watched Year One, which was quite funny, I am not sure why it did so poorly at the box office.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Movie Movie Movie

The Weekend in Review:

Watched The Philedelphia Story with friends, after a tasty potluck of cajun chili, cornbread, and butterscotch pie. It was great seeing people and the movie is hilarious.

Went to see Men Who Stare at Goats in the dollar theater, and picked up some books at Half Priced Books. The movie is very odd. One of my friends described it as endearing, and I think thats accurate.

Watched the first half of Sleepy Hollow on TV (which made me want to watch the rest) and then watched The Ugly Truth. This was a bad, but entertaining and fun romantic comedy.

And then, I was a complete nerd and watched The Parent Trap on the Disney Channel. Don't know why I always stop on this when its on...

Sunday I went and painted some pottery at Marcy's Playground in Powell, then headed up to my Grandma's for dinner.