Wednesday notes

The new dog is settling in nicely.

Raven, aka Pig II, is adorable. She likes to sleep on her dog bed, wrapped up with a blanket. She likes her new home.

She likes it so much, in fact, she wants to protect it. She woke me up last night barking bloody murder. She has a pretty loud bark for a little girl.

Anyway, I searched for intruders, and there were none. It was, however, very windy outside.

Yes, my new dog just woke me up to tell me it's windy outside.

Thanks, dog.

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I need a new can opener. I'm too cheap to buy one, so I've been trying to make do with the old one.

I opened a can of beets last night. Or, I tried to. When I finally succeeded, it looked like I murdered someone in my kitchen.

I'll buy a can opener this weekend.

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Now that my bronchitis is mostly gone, my allergies are like, hey, Monica, wannna party?

Sniffle, sneeze, sniffle, sneeze.

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I finally turned my furnace on last night.

I was going to bed with an electric blanket, hoodie, pants and fuzzy socks on, and I was still freezing. I'd really like to keep my fingers and toes, so I caved and turned the heat on.

I was kind of expecting something to explode in my new house, but nothing did

The dogs and I fell asleep early last night and, minus the barking incident, slept pretty sound all night.

A cat who doesn't know how to cat

It all started about a month ago.

If I remember right, my dog and I went for a walk. We walked past a cat on our walk, which scared my dog. It kind of scared me, too, because the cat didn't move when we walked past it. It looked at us, gave no shits that we were there, then went about its cat business.

I'm fairly sure the cat that has adopted my backyard as its home is the same cat.

Call me crazy, but maybe the cat followed my dog and I back to our house. Maybe the cat was thinking, 'That lady likes little furry things. Maybe her house would be a good place to live. I shall adopt this human and call her my own.'

If I'm outside for more than five minutes, I'll inevitably hear my new little friend meowing at me. At first, it was cute.

Now, it's kind of annoying. I swear I hear her meowing in my dreams.

The thing is, though, I'm not completely heartless. I don't want a cat in my house, but I do give her food, water, wish her well and hope she doesn't die.

That's enough for now, I think.

At first I fed her some expired lunch meat I had in my fridge that I was going to throw away.

She didn't complain.

When I ran out of that, I went and bought a $4 bag of cat food.

She isn't complaining about that, either.

I was working on a craft project outside last night. I cut off some string, sat down in the middle of my backyard, and tried to play with the cat.

She wouldn't have it. I'm not a cat person, but I thought all cats played with string? Isn't this supposed to be fun?

(Cat, you are the worst cat in history. You're such a bad cat, you don't even know how to cat.)

I'm on a mission to earn her trust. All the other wild cats don't get close to me. The wild cats hiss at my dog.

This cat comes close to me. As soon as I extend my arms out, she runs away. But I've never heard her hiss. She meows at me and my dog. She follows me around the yard.

When I go inside, she comes up to my back porch. Like, hey, I'm cute, can I come in?

As long as she doesn't beat my dog up, she can stay in my yard. She likes to sleep by my garage. She gives my dog the stink eye from the other side of the fence. Last night, I put my dog in the house specifically so the cat could eat her supper.

Penny and I had a nice, long talk in my backyard. Penny the Pug was on my lap, with the cat about three feet away from us. I told Penny to be nice, then I let her go. Penny's niceness lasted about 30 seconds, then the cat got chased up the tree.

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

I'm a sucker for cute things with tails.

Glorious.

This weekend, I did absolutely nothing.

I was dog sitting for my parents. I don't have cable at my house, or Internet. They do.

This weekend, I binge-watched HGTV (Hooray for Fixer Upper!), I watched a few episodes of Chopped Canada, and I watched several episodes of Law & Order SVU.

I don't regret not having television at my house. I feel several IQ points dumber today as a result of so much time I spent in front of a screen.

The feels

I had about 20 posts sitting here, waiting to be published.

I deleted most of them.

This one, though, I'll keep around.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kirstenking/watching-your-ex-fall-in-love-with-someone-else#.ug0x6WKv9

Comments: I feel like this is one of those reads that almost everyone will be able to relate to.

To take the tears you've cried and the pain you've felt and turn it into something beautiful is truly amazing. I hope you are able to get New York, London, and a year or two in Thailand, you truly deserve it.

The feels hit me hard.

And baby makes three. Kind of.

I've been wanting another dog since I bought my house back in May.

Penny the Pug needs a friend. More specifically, I thought she needed a friend her size, that way she can have a chance of winning.

When your buddies are Collies that weigh 60-80 pounds, you can't really win in a game of tug-of-war. I mean, Penny tries, but she really needs a buddy her size so she has a level playing friend.

Yesterday, I got some really good news. My adoption application for a Pug rescue group was accepted. They called my references, my veterinarian, and I was given the go-ahead to adopt a Pug.

A girl!

She's pretty cute. I'm going to get her next weekend.

Two Pugs. Can you imagine two Pugs?

Two!

I had to people.

I was exhausted yesterday. I woke up, cooked, and tried to do some other things.

I struggled to make it to 7 p.m.

I wondered why I was so tired, and then I realized that I was with people from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. On Saturday, I had to people from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Needless to say, I put my headphones in last night and zoned out. I was asleep by 9 p.m.

Two days of peopling is two days too much for this introvert.

Amigos

I went to a lovely wedding over the weekend.

The music was perfect, the dresses were beautiful, and the bride was beaming.

I always look forward to hanging out with this group of friends. There weren't any quotes about Ebola this time around, but there were a few good ones.

While dancing to a song that has the lyrics 'How low can you go?' - "I'm 30 and pregnant. I can't go very low."

On the drive home, explaining to my friends that I bought stuff to make bierocks but forgot the dough: "I laughed so hard I almost choked."

:)

Dreams

I know I need to update my blog when people tell me "You know, I read your blog..."

Fine, I'll update it.

:)

I've been having really weird dreams lately. Last night, I had a dream someone was snoring. I'm pretty sure Penny the Pug was snoring beside me, and I incorporated that into my dream.

But that's not the weird dream.

The other night, I had a dream I went to a high school class reunion. Which is normal and fine, except our class reunion was in New Jersey.

Why did a group of Kansans decide to meet in New Jersey? I have no idea.

Anyway, they all met at the hotel and got bussed somewhere else for the reunion. I missed the bus and got left behind. I was driving a really old car (a Jeep, to be exact) that didn't have power steering. I left my keys and my cell phone in the Jeep, then it broke down, then someone gave me a ride somewhere else.

Basically, as a result, I was homeless in New Jersey.

Haha. What?

I woke up in a pretty bad mood that morning. You know, homelessness will do that to you.

I can't wait to see what my dreams have in store for me tonight!

Big, scary world

This is a blog post about Penny Pug.

I've been trying to exercise more. It's been a whopping two days since I decided that, but you have to start somewhere, right?

My gym membership is on hold until The Plague, aka my bronchitis, goes completely away.

Ah bummer.

Anyway, with the help of an inhaler I can manage walking and breathing, most of the time.

I had some stuff to mail the other day. Instead of driving, Penny and I walked.

I have the Fitbit app on my phone, and it's easy to become obsessed with it.

Anyway, after we mailed our stuff I let Penny lead the way. If she wanted to turn, we turned. If she wanted to go straight, we kept going. 

Penny weighs almost 20 pounds. Her attitude is much bigger, most of the time.

We ended up a few streets over from my house. There were two German Shephards on one side of the street in a chain link fence.

I hesitated walking past them, so I crossed the street with Penny.

There was a beautiful Boxer sitting down, looking at us. I saw him right away. He didn't look mean and he wasn't barking.

I decided it'd be safe to keep going.

But there was a problem. A 20-pound problem, to be specific.

Penny the small Pug saw that Boxer and was terrified. She sat down and refused to walk any further.

She was also deathly afraid of a cat on our walk.  Oh, Penny.

House stuff.

There are certain things I never pictured myself doing in life.

Such as:

• Vacuuming a basement ceiling. Twice.

• Throwing carpet out of a window, then having said carpet get stuck on my roof.

• Using a Jesus Stick to get the carpet off my roof. (Thank God for Jesus sticks!)

• Getting a splinter underneath my fingernail while tearing out staples. Ouchie McOuchie Pants.

• Sitting at home for days in a bronchital fog, and not unloading the dishwasher once. Meh.

• Putting ice packs on various bumps on my head because I'm not used to low, angled bedroom attic ceilings.

That leads me to my current dilemma. I have an upstairs bedroom, an attic space, that I've been working on. The cat carpet is finally gone, and I can be in that room without gagging. Hooray!

I stood in that room last night and just looked around. Um, guys, I have no idea what to do with this room. The walls need painted, but what color? Do I do a crazy color up here? A neutral color? Do I put in bookshelves where the ceiling curves down?

Everyone else who lived in this house used that room as their master bedroom.

I have no idea what to use it as. Any ideas, tips or suggestions are welcome.