Saturday, December 8, 2007

Sad

Our family dog is going to be put to sleep on Monday morning. This is sad news. I loved Spooky. DH and I even dog sat her for an entire year while my parents were building their new house. She is a good dog. She's 16 years old. Blind and deaf and probably in quite a bit of pain from arthritis, plus her teeth are all rotting out. It is the best for us to let her go. I will not go and say goodbye to her. I can't. I recently had that experience with my beloved cat, Remmy, and I just am not strong enough to withstand it another time. I will just chose to remember Spooky's good times. She used to get so excited that she couldn't stand it. All she knew how to do was to run around the yard in figure eights for like 30 minutes at a time. She'd get really low to the ground and just fly. Sometimes she'd nose a soccer ball around with her in those figure eights too. She was a good soccer player. In the summer my parents would always get her sheared. She looked so funny without all of her fur. I would laugh at her forever and she never could seem to figure out why. She was a hunter. She's killed tons of rabbits and birds and even a stray ground hog or two I believe. But she never tried to hurt a cat. We don't know why. I guess she just knew that they were off limits. She was good with cats. They bothered her to death but she never snipped at them. Not even once. Mutts are always the best dogs. So good natured and so gentle. I will miss her when she's gone.

Ho ho ho and mistletoe and presents for pretty girls...

It's Christmastime! I like shopping during this time of year. Well, I like shopping ANY time of the year, but this time is more festive, what with the lights and grumpy shoppers, fender benders, screaming snotty kids and Christmas carols. I take more of a consumerism approach towards the holiday, but still, I like the idea of it. I enjoy buying presents for my closest friends and family. It makes me feel good to buy gifts for people. It's majorly fun when you get a gift for someone just knowing that they will LOVE it. Or when you see something and think that is SO (insert name here)! Of course, I always end up buying more for myself than anyone else, but I'm just doing my part in boosting the economy, really.

Next weekend it's off to visit one side of my DH's family for Christmas. I can't say that I am looking forward to it. I bought my nieces gifts, but I am unsure what to do for the rest of the family. There is no set tradition with this family. Some years gifts are exchanged and some years they are not. It is left up to me to use my ESP skills to determine whether this year will be a gift-giving year or not. Oh yeah, I don't have any ESP skills. Drat! Giving gifts to people I do not know is not my cup of tea.

I got one niece this cute little girl's make-up kit and when I get home I see that it says not for use in children under 8. My niece is 3. Wonderful. She's still getting it. And the other niece I will be meeting for the first time. She's 4 months old and I don't think she cares about stuffed elephants, but that's what she's getting. It's appropriately marked for children under 6 months. Phew.

This time of year usually means extra pounds gained. But not this year, no sirree. Last week was week one on Weight Watchers for me. I lost 2.5 pounds even while being at my work's annual conference for most of the week surrounded by free food and booze. And then this week it all went to hell. I erroneously convinced myself that I was pregnant (another story) and was a little lax with the eating so I gained 1/2 pound back. That is OK. I am on my way down. This is good news. May week 3 be another week of loss. I went to the gym today for the first time in quite a while. It felt good. I was the only girl there! I came home and told my husband that I was the prettiest girl in the gym today. ;) Soon, I am going to start going to Zumba dance classes, which is kind of intimidating. A new friend of mine from work has a friend who teaches classes so I told her I'd go with her to them. I'm excited about that. Mainly about having a new friend at work more so than the aerobics class.

I have no closing paragraph. But I feel I should say something here. This is such an abrupt way to end my blog.