Beautiful day

It's a beautiful day out, the doggies are going in and out of the house, running in the yard and playing. The kitties are joining them too, when they feel like it. I love having the doors open and the sun shining. There are buds on the tree outback, which I think is a dogwood. I think that our cedar trees look amazing in the snow, but they are so richly green and lush in the sun.


Penny is out with her daddy for a ride in the truck. He went to his dad's house to get the chain saw to take care of a tree that fell down in our lot across the street. It's the perfect weather for outdoor activities, and I think he's going to enjoy himself.

Cousin Baron has come to visit for the weekend, and he and Omie are having a great time just laying in the sun.


Bosley thinks being outside is a good idea too, but Charlie is trying to find an adventure to get into on this glorious day.

Bosley on the hill.

Charlie considering his way out of the gate.

We slept in until 11 today, but the day is so nice, that I'm feeling productive. I wonder what I shall accomplish today? I guess we'll see....

New addition to the family?

Zach and I are contemplating another new addition to the family.

::Pause for effect::

No, we aren't trying to have a kid, but we are looking to adopt one. The furry, four legged kind, that is. Right after Zach and I got married we adopted two dogs from the local kill shelter. We also have two cats that I adopted three years ago, and so we are currently a family of six. I love having lots of furry kids, and I love rescuing deserving animals who need a happy home. They are all like real kids - demanding in their own way, they each have their special quirks, and someone is always picking on someone else.

Today, I am going to meet a new dog that is up for adoption with one of my favorite rescue groups, Independent Animal Rescue. I adopted both of my boys - Charlie and Bosley, the kitties - from IAR, and they are a network of wonderful foster families.

The Story Behind One More...

Additions to our family started well before Zach and I were even together. I adopted the boys the summer of 2006 when I got my first apartment on my own without a roommate. Needless to say, I was lonely, and so I opted to create a small little family.

Bosley was originally named Bobby. I was not a fan of the name Bobby, but he responded so well to his name, that I was forced to come up with something very similar. Finding such a name that I liked was difficult. I love interesting names, and having the right name means a lot to me. When I found the name, Bosley, I knew that was who he (Bobby, the cat) was going to be from the moment he moved in with me.

The picture of Bosley I was from his adoption website...three years ago now!

Bosley being evil to the doggies...his favorite pastime.

Bosley is a very handsome mackerel tabby. When he first got to my apartment I was amazed at how completely unafraid and adventuresome he was. I was excited that I had chosen so wisely. Not only was he friendly and outgoing, but he loved to snuggle with me. The first night we spent together, however, I knew that something (or rather someone) was missing. Bosley cried all night long, trying to get me up to rub him or play with him. After being rescued from a house with 60 indoor cats, and coming from a foster home with at least 15 cats, he was lonely during the night when he was left to his own devices. The search for Charlie was begun....

Charlie is also a handsome tabby with leopard like spots. I met him at a PetSmart in Durham. He was playing around on the floor outside of the little viewing cells that they use to show off the cats for adoption. He was extremely personable and outgoing. When I talked to the volunteer who was in charge of him, I found out that he had been adopted but then returned when he cried all night long and disturbed the family's children. He came from the same house that Bosley had been rescued from, was loving and adventurous, and he had the same night time loneliness - what more could I ask for? Oh, and he had the perfect name already.

Charlie on the floor.

From the first night that Charlie came home with me, I never again heard a peep out of my two boys. They weren't friends at first sight, but it only took a weekend of time spent with me and each other until they were truly brothers

The kitties out in the snow in January 2009.

Charlie and Omie, the best of friends.

Our girls were rescued from the local kill shelter. We had talked about adopting a dog or two when we were engaged, and I just couldn't wait to see what was at the shelter after we got married. The first week of being married, and before we went on a weekend long honeymoon to the beach, Zach and I visited the shelter to see what dogs were there. When we got to the shelter I was horrified by the smell and the cages the dogs were in. I know the shelter was doing the best it could with the resources it had, but I was shocked. There were many good dogs waiting to be adopted, but Omie and Penny stood out from the rest.

Omie was the first dog that I didn't think I could live without. Her happy little face was just too adorable, and it was love at first sight. Penny was a quiet, shy little girl and had such a sweet spirit that we knew we had to get both of them. We went to the shelter just to get an idea of the dogs they might have, and we came away knowing we had to adopt the two little girls we had seen. We had the shelter hold the girls until we got back from our honeymoon, and then they finally came home with us.

Omie resting on my ankles.

Omie sleeping on her bed.

Omie has practically been the model dog. She's playful, fun-loving, good natured, very intelligent, a quick learner, and eager to please. Within an hour of getting her home, she was already sitting on command.

Penny is a very sweet tempered but stubborn little girl. She likes to do things her way and isn't big on listening the 50 times around. It took her a solid month and a half for her to learn her name, and after we had only had her two weeks, she ran away for almost 5 days.

Penny curled up in her bed.

Penny looking like the perfect dog. ;)

When Penny ran away, we learned a lot of things as a family - 1. Omie loves her sister and doesn't like to be without her, 2. Penny can travel a long way really quickly as someone reported seeing her 5 miles from home, 3. I'm a wreck when one of my babies goes missing, and 4. Zach is my solid rock when I need emotional support. That first time was unfortunately not the last time that Penny ran away. Penny has since escaped twice. The second time she was gone for only the morning and was home by lunch time, but the third time she was gone for the whole night when it had snowed 6 inches (something that rarely happens to our area of NC) and was supposed to be below 20 degrees. Penny seems to think that it is her job to find every whole in a fence, or any way over a fence so that she can escape. We can not figure out why she wants to run away from us when we love her so much, but we hope that she will get used to being with us and out grow it.

Finding a third dog to adopt came up every time that we went to our friend Crystal's house. Crystal has an adorable chihuahua that makes me want a tiny lap dog. Zach said that when the girls were trained that I could find a little dog to adopt. The promise of such a thing made it so in my head and I started looking online immediately. That is when I found Lucky. Lucky is not the little dog that I was looking for, instead he is rather like our Omie. However, he is white instead of black. They have the same adorable face. I showed his adoption page to Zach and he fell in love with him, too.

Lucky's cute little face.

Lucky in his foster mom's yard.

Today I am going to meet Lucky at his foster mom's house. If I think he will make a great addition to our family, then we will introduce him to the girls and see how they get along. I have a hunch that I'm going to love him instantly, but I'm trying to be practical. We'll see what happens.

Working from home

I am a Type 1 diabetic who is insulin dependent. This morning my blood sugar was extremely low and I had a tough time getting up and thinking straight. I'm so glad that Zach was there this morning to take care of me.

As a result of my low blood sugar, the start of my day was greatly delayed and I didn't feel well. I decided to start my work day at home, and then go to work after lunch. Now I know what it is liked to be spoiled, and I wish that I could do that every morning. There is nothing better than sitting on the couch wrapped up in blankets with a kitty on one side, a doggy on the other, my laptop in my lap, and being very productive in the comfort of my home. Not only was it nice to be able to work from my couch, but I was at home when Zach came home for lunch. That was the highlight of the experience. I wish I could work from home full-time, or just be a homemaker so that I could be there with a meal ready when he gets home from work.

One day, perhaps....

His sense of humor

Zach's sense of humor is hit or miss with me. Sometimes I find him endlessly hilarious, and other times I wonder what the heck he's talking about. I hope that one day I get all of his jokes. Of course, there are only three ways for that to happen - 1. Zach will have to improve his sense of humor and be as funny as he likes to think he is, 2. I'll have to lower my standards and lessen my moral faculties, or 3. I will eventually know him inside and out so that I will completely understand his sense of humor, and finally see him as he sees himself - hilarious. If you can't guess, I'm hoping for number one or three, but mostly three I suppose.

In looking through pictures to post yesterday, I found three among our engagement photos that I had forgotten about. They made me laugh out loud, and I thought that I would share them with you.

Here is a photograph to give you some insight into the part of Zach's sense of humor that I love. He had our friend, Adam Casey, take this picture during our engagement photo session. Zach said that this would be the story of his life - he's lost, and he's holding my purse.


This is Zach's impression of Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, when Ricky was being interviewed for the first time. He didn't know what to do with his hands.

This is me walking away and laughing at Zach for being hilariously stupid, hahaha. I'm so glad that Adam got this last moment on film. It is one of my favorite short little photo stories of Zach and myself. Thank you, Adam, for your photojournalistic savvy!

Our Story Finale...almost

Zach and I started dating again in July. We were immediately having serious conversations whenever we were together or on the phone about what we wanted in life, where the other person fit in our life plans, how we felt about each other, and what our next move was to be.

Zach had started looking for houses to buy several months before we were back together, and I had appointed myself as his real estate helper. I helped him search the web for listing and went with him to look at the houses so that I could ask the questions he wouldn't know to ask. I learned my house hunting skills from my mother. We used to move every two or three years when I was growing up. Looking for and finding a new house was so ingrained in me growing up, that when we had been in the same house for five years, I started asking when we were going to be moving because we had been there too long.

In looking at the houses, Zach always wanted to know what I thought, if I could see myself living there, that sort of thing. It was amazing how little time it took for my perspective to change (and imagine living in the houses) and for him to start suggesting that if he bought a house that needed some work, perhaps he could let me live there in exchange for helping him fix things and decorating. From there, my imagination started picturing actually living there with Zach, and it didn't seem strange, but oddly normal and right.

Zach was very smooth in his transition from talking about me living in the house he bought to me just living with him in general. I was then forced to tell him that I would never live with someone again (I did that once before and it didn't work out) before I married them. I should have known that he thought that was the perfect solution, that I should marry him. So, when we started dating again in July, we were already talking about spending our lives together, I just had no idea how short the timeline would become.

Zach found the house of his dreams shortly after we started dating again. Actually, I found the house online and fell in love with the pictures of it from the outside (that was the only thing available). I sent him the link to the house twice without realizing it. As it turned out, his friend and real estate agent Donna Lane with Carolina Realty, was the listing agent for the house. He had decided that the house was out of his budget and that he wasn't going to go look at it. She finally convinced him to go, and that was it, he fell in love.


Once Zach made an offer on the house and it was accepted, we started talking about getting engaged. I sent him links to rings that I liked online, and told him that I'd love to have an Ascher cut diamond, but also liked Emerald cuts. I also told him about my love of sapphires and my preference for platinum. Zach took these details and ran with them. He found the perfect Ascher cut diamond through Jolly's Jewelers, and asked our hometown jeweler, Daniel Evans, to make the setting. The end result was absolutely amazing. I can honestly say that I think my engagement ring is the most beautiful one that I have ever seen. I will never be jealous of anyone elses, nor can I imagine seeing something that I would like better. Zach had the perfect ring made just for me, and there isn't another like it.

My gorgeous ring.

Zach asked me to marry him the day he got the ring from Mr. Evans. That happened to be the same day that our fourth friend wedding of the year occured. Zach was one of the groomsmen, and I helped out where I could.

"Cake" topper at the fourth friend wedding of the year.

After the wedding and reception were over, we went back to Zach's father's house. He asked me to marry him on the front porch of his family home on August 2, 2008, with the help of a letter he had written. It was the most romantic thing he could have done. Zach has always been a letter writer when it came to me. He has written me many times over the years, and I have kept every one of them. This one will one day be framed, even though his handwriting is attrocious, hahaha.

We went out that night with our newly married friends to celebrate their union, and announce the impending status of our own!


After we were engaged, we talked about the date of the wedding. Because of the house, Zach didn't want to wait that long to be married. He wanted to get married and then move into the house. I have always wanted a fall wedding. It was the only kind of wedding I ever pictured having. Zach's desire for a short engagement left me with a difficult choice - have a wedding in two or three months, or get married in the spring. My mom convinced me that I could get it done in time for a fall wedding, and so we chose October 18, 2008. We became the sixth and final wedding among our friend's wedding calendar.

These are my favorites of the engagement photos.

This was the best picture I'd seen of myself in years before the wedding. And the one below was the best one I had ever seen of Zach up to that point in time.

Pictures taken by our friend Adam Casey at the Reynolda Gardens in Winston Salem, NC.

We had a beautiful ceremony and reception on a friend's farm land. It was simple, but beautiful in my opinion. It was better than I had ever imagined. I'll make a separate post about the ceremony to show off pictures.

The after wedding events are an entire story unto themselves that I will tell you about them in another post as well.

Home makeover

My sister came to visit this weekend with two things on her agenda, to help me clean my house and to throw away the majority of my clothing in her version of the popular show "What Not To Wear". As it turns out, the first task on her list was a more daunting task than she had assumed. We spent one and a half days working on cleaning up my house (which meant organizing, creating storage space, rearranging furniture, and actual cleaning) and were able to accomplish making over three and a half rooms of the house.

The following pictures illustrate the before and after of these three and a half rooms.

THE DEN - BEFORE

These are before pictures of my husbands den, or the man cave. This room is a place where his tastes are reflected in the decor. My husband loves the idea of decorating with roosters everywhere in the house. I generally do not like roosters as art or in themed decor, although I couldn't tell you why. For Christmas, I found an artist's work that I loved, and created a rooster wall in my husband's room that you will see below. The artist's name is Roz, a member of Etsy (an online artist forum with wonderful artists - I shop there all the time), and you can find her work in a shop called RozArt. You'll see Roz's prints in the after or makeover pictures below.

THE DEN- AFTER

The red solid wood baskets on the coffee table cubes are antiques bought in Selma, NC, an antique focused town. They came from an awesome shop called Visual Pleasure Antiques. It is one of my favorite shops in downtown Selma. Omie, our black Border Collie mix loves that there is now space to sit on the couch.

The green box on the mantle is also an antique from downtown Selma. It is from a biscuit company, and opens up like a shadow box frame. We are going to add little hooks inside and hang our keys in it. I am always loosing mine. It came from another of my favorite antique shops, Railroad Street Antiques.

The hat, scarf, and glove holders hanging above my antique church pew chairs were flower planters purchase at Big Lots and repurposed. My sister is brilliant with these sorts of details. Penny loves how clean the floor is, and Charlie (the cat) just wants to be in the picture.

THE KITCHEN - BEFORE

There is only one picture of the kitchen before we worked on it. I wasn't very good at covering all the angles in there. However, much of the work that was done on the kitchen can't be seen from the pictures. We reorganized everything in the cabinets and pantry, and cleaned everything as well. It was a huge project to say the least. Now it just needs to be painted and should be done!

THE KITCHEN - AFTER

The kitchen can seem like a small enclosed space, but my sister hung a mirror over the sink and really opened up the room. I was skeptical at first, but I love it now.

Before we moved our dining room table into the dining room (which you'll see next) Zach and I ate at the coffee table cubes in his den, sitting on the couch. This table was used as a side table to the couch, but is much more useful as a breakfast table. We love eating at this table.

THE DINING ROOM - BEFORE

Once again I covered a room poorly for the before pictures. This one also only has one picture, but that's mostly because the room was empty except for the few random things shown in the picture above. This is also the "half" room that was done, as it isn't completely done but had enough improvement to warrant mentioning.

THE DINING ROOM - AFTER

I purchased the two pictures above from our local Salvation Army for five bucks each. They are Williamsburg prints, and must have been quite a purchase the first time they were sold.

Our dining room table was a Craigslist purchase. We bought it with money we got from our wedding showers. It is a great table with a cabinet beneath it that I will use to store centerpieces for the table.

THE YELLOW BATH - BEFORE

Yes, the yellow bathroom was disgusting. It is the wash the doggy bathroom and the cut my husband's hair bathroom (and apparently the kitty watering hole - at least while I was taking this picture, which made me shudder after I chased Bosley off). It would get dirty fast and stay that way. Before my sister arrived I gave it a thorough cleaning because it is also the guest bathroom, gasp! It looks wonderful now though, and just needs to be painted and decorated a little to finish it off.

THE YELLOW BATH - AFTER

And that is what my sister and I did this weekend. She says that we are not done yet, but will accomplish making over at least two rooms each weekend we have free until everything is done. I love my sister!

While my sister and I were cleaning and organizing, my wonderful husband was hanging light fixtures inside and out around the house. I'll have to take pictures of his work and post that as well. His contribution shouldn't be overlooked, it makes a huge difference in how the house looks.

The weekend

I didn't take the time to post this weekend, which I had sincerely planned to do, but I will make up for that with an interesting recap of the highlights accompanied by pictures! I had an extremely productive weekend, but I also got a reality check about how I view things as opposed to their actual state of existence.

My weekend tale is not for the faint of heart, and much to my embarrassment, my failures will be vividly illustrated in my full post later today.

Be forewarned, it gets ugly...and dirty....