Dress Up, Dine In

Strut Your Mutt is this weekend.      I could tell you about how necessary these donations are especially for the group I rescue with ( Utah Animal Advocacy Foundation ) who specializes in "difficult" adoption cases. I could give you statistics on how many animals are neglected and unloved. Instead I want to tell you two stories.  This is Tezoatlan (Tezzie, Mandis, Bug, Old Man Friend). This is what he looked like when Seth and I adopted him during my senior year of college. He was a puppy mill stud dog who never knew beds, toys, or caring people. He was blind and needed major medical treatment for the first few years. Tezzie spent much of the beginning of our relationship having accidents and anxiety whenever we left.  Through lots of persistence and understanding, the puff that used to sit in a corner and want nothing to do with us became a family member. He chomps on his toy tomato, snores in his birthday bed, occasionally cuddles in his old age, and is our daught

To Eileen~ (the night before I go back to work) I love you.  I loved you when you had an alligator spine,  when you danced if we danced in class,  when we met you.  I loved you when you snuggled,  when you first recognized the puffs,  when you reached for me on purpose.  I loved you when you giggled,  when you made dinosaur noises,  when you were my everywhere buddy.  And I will love you now in one place while you are in another.  That's the beauty of it.  There are no stay-at-home or working mamas.  There are just mamas.  And they can love from anywhere. And I will love you from everywhere.

The Ranch had its first burial this weekend.  Thankfully it wasn't any of our furry friends but it was still sad. One of the semi-feral cats that's been around since we moved in (and who recently became a mama too) passed away under the Christmas tree in the front yard. Seth, being the stellar man that he is, buried her in our easement because that's where they spent most of their time. We put some markers on the spot, food on the porch for the two babies, and had a discussion about whether cats understood death.  I'd like to think that the connection between family, even in the animal world, is there forever.  I'm definitely one of those nerds who believes in the Rainbow Bridge and those that have loved you being a presence in your life.  I believe because every now and then you see evidence of it. At night we see the kittens lying next to their mama.

I'm not sure what most disturbs me about the picture you're about to see: the fact that this is only half of the ones that we trapped in a single night or that this pad was in the most trafficked part of the basement (our laundry room/puff playroom/only bathroom left standing). I know renovations are supposed to stir up ghosts but apparently the Ranch has more spiders than spirits.  (If you're like me and only enjoy spiders at Halloween and in jewelry form, don't even bother looking at what comes next.) (Oh, and pay no attention to the dingy baseboards or floral wallpaper. Wallpaper is scarier than our eight-legged basement friends.) (See...I'm giving you time to back out of looking at this picture...) Gah! Obviously, whether these are examples of Utah's poisonous (and ridiculously named) Hobo spider or not, they cannot continue sharing the Ranch with us. Even though I know they're here because they're eating other insects, love ba

When I was little we used to do Fourth of July at Tom Brown Park in Tallahassee. It was quite the event because you got bussed in with your blankets/kids/coolers and once you arrived you were there until the fireworks. I absolutely loved it, but now as a parent, I can only imagine what a production it was for Mama and Chungs.  That's why whenever I get frustrated with the Ranch, I think about the 4th. Our street is super close to Murray Park and on the Fourth of July it makes for an easy celebration. There's a morning parade and fireworks well before the city sponsored show (though the neighborhood ones made us more nervous this year because of the wild fires), lawn chairs, family all over the place, and it takes us 40 minutes just to get up to our house because we're stopping to catch up with everyone. Our street has a perfect view of the city fireworks to end the evening. You don't have to go any further than your yard. It's fantastic.    This year we wer

When the company you keep is primarily 6-7 year olds and a darling baby bean, it's easy to feel young all the time. In actuality my 30th birthday isn't too far off. So, to rip off a sorority sister's blog idea, I decided to make a list of thirty things I'd like to do before that milestone birthday. It was started in October of 2011 and the final goal was added yesterday. My younger (and more singular) self would probably have compiled a completely different set. My current self is looking forward to this "map" to getting older.                                                        30 x 30 1. Have a baby 2. Finish renovating the ranch 3. Go back to Europe 4. Take the puffs on a hike 5. Get something published 6. Weigh 110 pounds again 7. Be a ski bunny 8. Go off the grid for a weekend 9. Plant a tree in our front yard 10. Buy a really stellar pair of heels 11. Write a children's book (even if it's only for mine) 12. Get a

In the summer we reclined with good books in the backyard...just the six of us. Three dogs, two almost parents, and one unborn bean. It was in this very setting that I discovered the most exact words on what it meant to be a mother. They were honest. They were simple. They were truth. "We change shape, she continued, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut our long hair. We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll. We loose muscle tone, sleep, reason, perspective. Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies. They breathe, they eat, they crawl and-look!-they walk, they begin to speak to us. We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going. We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch the knees of dungarees. We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us.

So, we had a baby and had so much fun with her, family coming into town, and the holiday season that there wasn't time to blog about it. Now as I type (one handed cause Eileen's in the other) it's difficult to put into words the way becoming parents has changed us. For now I'll just say that if the new year is even half as spectacular as how the last one ended, we'll take it. We welcomed 2012 with a cozy night in the ranch and some of our favorite souls. Happy New Year, friends.