Spring Flowers

I just wanted to share some of the beautiful flowers that I am enjoying in my yard. This is the most amazing ground cover ever! I absolutely love the little white flowers. The back of the petals are dark pink, which gives it a cool look. It is spreading well through one of my flower beds. I love it!
This is some other ground cover I have. They are tiny blue flowers. Pretty!

Here are some amazing iris. I love the colors! My neighbor has already asked for some starts when I divide the purple ones.

Here is the flower bed as a whole. It's pretty full, but also pretty! The flowers are much prettier up close.

My bushes have the most amazing yellow flowers all over them!

More beautiful iris:

Here is the flower bed as a whole. Not as pretty from far away. There are many more flowers getting ready to bloom. It will be nice having more colors than just yellow (though I love the yellow ones).

Best Friends

Newton and Bullwinkle have become best friends. It makes me so happy! Newton is getting so big. He's getting closer and closer to Bullwinkle's size. I just hope he doesn't get bigger than Bullwinkle! Newton and Bullwinkle play so well together.

The above picture is from March so Newton isn't too big yet. He loves to jump and lay on Bullwinkle. Gratefully Bullwinkle doesn't seem to mind.

Tug-o-war is a favorite at our house. Newton doesn't care who his opponent is. He is quick to get in on the game!Another fun game is wrestling. Even though Bullwinkle is still bigger, he isn't always the one on top. This is the only picture that I was able to get to show that Newton is getting close to Bullwinkle's size. It's hard getting two dogs to cooperate during pictures!Here are the handsome boys and on a nice Sunday afternoon. We played outside for a while today.

Introducing.....

This is my new little boy. His name is Newton. I got him on Tuesday, February 2nd. A friend of a friend was giving him away. I love free!
Just to give you an idea how big he is right now, the dish he is sitting by is a small dog dish. I tried weighing him on my scale, but he didn't even register. He was too light for the scale to know he was on there.

He plays well with Bully. They play tug-o-war and wrestle a bit. So far Bully has been so gentle with him. I hope that continues! Bully has been a bit jealous too, but I'm trying to pay attention to them at the same time.

Now I just need to get this little guy house broken. I'm being impatient right now. I want it to happen now! I can't remember how long it took Bully to become house broken. I guess it's good I forgot about that part. I wouldn't have this little guy now.

In Loving Memory

I had to say goodbye to my sweet Rocky on Wednesday, December 2nd. It has been one of the hardest things I've had to do. He had been showing signs of his age more and more lately. He was having a hard time getting outside to do his business. He was pretty much blind and deaf. Last Saturday his back legs started going out on him. He had such a hard time getting around. When was able to stand up, he would walk in circles. When he would wear himself out he would lay down wherever he was, even in the middle of the kitchen floor. Here is a picture of him on his last day. He could have used a hair cut! :) Here is a picture of him plopped down on the kitchen floor. I kept trying to put him in his soft bed, but he would get up and move. I felt so bad that he was laying on the kitchen floor. It couldn't have been very comfortable.

The following picture is from a while ago. It is how I want to remember him. So soft and cuddly. He was such a good dog! I'm very grateful I had him in my life. I am at peace knowing he's not in pain anymore. I was really stressed out those last few days worrying about him. The process was really smooth and peaceful. My sweet friend went with me to the vet. Thank you! It went very quickly. Yes, I cried and continue to cry off and on. It was hard to come home from work the next day and not have him here to greet me. I miss him, but I know he's in a better place now.

Gratefully, a few years ago, I took some video of him playing ball. It puts a smile on my face to remember how much fun he had playing ball. That was what life was all about for him. Nothing would make him happier! I have enjoyed watching the videos the past couple of days. It is helping me remember all the great times we had. The following video was up at my dad's house. He has a nice big yard for playing ball.

I love you Rocky! I sure hope you're waiting for me in the next life (though I hope I don't follow too soon--he he).

My sweet neighbor boy drew me a picture and made me a card. I was very touched. Here they are:

Pathetic

When someone comes to the door, I usually leave the dogs locked upstairs. A few times this week I had some people over and we were sitting down in the living room. Bullwinkle finds it so difficult to be separated from me. He stands on the chair and sets his head on the pony wall. I just had to get a picture (or two).

What I come home to

So, I came home the other day to this.
It's kind of hard to see what I'm referring to so, here's a closer picture:

Yep, Bully decided to plop down in the mud. His whole side was solid mud. I don't know what he was doing, but he sure was a mess.

Nice Visit

Last weekend Nate and April came over for a nice visit. Nate made his fabulous hamburgers and April made the best frozen yogurt. It was most grateful for their visit. Sweet little Calvin loved seeing Bullwinkle and Bullwinkle loved the opportunity to love Calvin. Here Bully was caught in the middle of trying to lick Calvin. See that tongue hanging out?! We did our best to keep Bully from succeeding.
Calvin kept reaching for Bully's face. He was loving it!

This was the best picture! Look at that happy face. He was so excited about Bully, he kept laughing. What a cutie!

End of Christmas

For Christmas, Bullwinkle got one of his favorite toys (shown below). Each "arm" has a squeaker in it. He loves to run around squeaking it. He will even play fetch with this toy (he won't bring back balls if I try to play fetch with them -- he'll run and get them, but not bring them back).
Well, after many games of fetch and many hours of enjoyment, this toy has seen better days. Bully has finished de-stuffing it. Look at the guilty face. He actually usually has a guilty face any time I pull out the camera.

I like this one. He looks like he's trying to act all innocent. Toy, what toy? I didn't see any toy.

As part of their Christmas gift, I gave both boys a bag of treats. Rocky didn't waste any time digging in to them! I didn't get any regular pictures of him, but I did get a little video clip. Now if it will just load.......

8 Favorites

8 Favorite TV shows (not necessarily in order):

• Life
• Chuck
• Smallville
• Eleventh Hour
• House
• The Mentalist
• NCIS
• Monk

8 Things I Look Forward To:

• Paying off my basement remodel
• Paying off my house
• Buying a new, bigger car
• Weekends
• Meeting my knight in shining armor
• My sister visiting from Georgia
• A clean house
• Getting a good night's sleep

8 Favorite Places to Eat:

• Macaroni Grill
• Red Robin
• Texas Roadhouse
• Red Butte Cafe
• Mandarin
• Chili's
• Gourmandise, The Bakery
• Burger King

8 Things on my Wish List:

• A clean house
• No weeds in my yard
• A backyard not wrecked by the dogs
• A wedding (mine, of course)
• A new car
• A nice beach vacation
• Sleep!!!
• Friends to hang out with

8 Favorite Movies:

• Batman Begins
• Strictly Ballroom
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy
• Star Wars
• What a Girl Wants
• Never Been Kissed
• Pride & Prejudice (A & E)
• Lucky 7

8 People I tag:

• Anyone
• Who
• Wants
• to
• be
• Tagged
• by
• me!

In a Funk

I know I haven't updated for a while, but I really don't have much to say. After all, it is just me and the "boys". The boys got shaved yesterday so they are both just shadows of their former selves. I probably should have waited a while longer before I had them shaved. They are both pretty cold. Thank goodness for sweaters!

So, lately I have been in a bit of a funk. I'm not sure why. Things at work are going well. I just don't really want to be there. I don't want to do anything -- not even things I usually enjoy. I usually love playing racquetball, but right now I have to force myself to go. Of course, once I get playing, I generally enjoy it. I don't feel like reading or anything else I usually love to do all the time. I guess I'm suffering a bit from depression again. My sleeping meds aren't working quite as well as they were when I first started taking them. I'm just tired of being so very tired. I'm trying not to dwell on it so much, but obviously right now is not one of those times. :) Really, everything is fine. I have a good job that I enjoy. I have a beautiful home (that needs a good cleaning). I have the cutest dogs ever that love me in spite of me. I have fabulous neighbors. I need to find a way out of this funk!

I've started a new night time routine. By 7:00 pm, I am off of the computer. I have been recording some Women's Conference talks and Education week talks (I love BYUTV!). I listen to those for a while. I read my scriptures and then head to bed. I was hoping this might help the sleep, but nope. The past four or five nights have been terrible! Oh well. I'm not going to give up yet.

Tagged

The rules:

Go to your pictures, go to the 6th folder, and then the 6th picture. Blog about it.

First off, the 6th "picture" in my folder is actually a movie. It was taken on my trip to Cancun. On one of our side trips, we stopped for lunch and they provided entertainment. It was quite entertaining.

If I want to strictly follow the rules, the 6th picture was this:

Last year my neighbor's asked me to help out with science fair projects. I went with them to the science fair to see the final products. Everyone wanted pictures. This is the picture of me and their youngest boy (he didn't do a science fair project since at this point in time he was in pre-school). The poster behind us belonged to one of his brothers.

I tag anyone else who wants to do it.

Crazy Dream

I have been having very crazy dreams since I started on my newest medication. The problem is that I don't remember them well enough come morning to write them down. Last night was a particularly crazy dream and I tried so hard to remember it so I could write it down. I do remember the basic story, so here it is:

I was with a friend in some room somewhere. We had rigged up a small circuit board with paper clips attached to a decent size power supply. We would take turns hooking each other up to this circuit board. We would shock each other (like a serious shock that would stop your heart). Once we had shocked the other one, we would hook them up to another circuit board (also made with paper clips) and shock them again to bring them back to life. We had been doing this for quite some time (I’m not sure why, but apparently it was fun to do). But, then something went terribly wrong. At this point there were three of us and we shocked one of the friends and after we did, something went wrong with the equipment. We had him (the friend we shocked) hooked up to a computer so I looked at the computer to see if he was still there. I could see him floating around inside the computer, but we couldn’t get him back. The circuits wouldn’t work. We kept trying and trying and trying. Our poor friend was trapped in an alternate universe. He wasn’t dead, he was just lost. We were freaking out. We somehow traveled in time to see ourselves create a similar machine that performed similarly to what we had been playing with. We thought if we could spy on ourselves that we might be able to figure out how to build that machine and bring our friend back. It was difficult trying not to let ourselves in another time see ourselves from the current time. This went on for a while (and I know there was a lot more to the dream in this area, but I cannot remember specifically enough to write it down). We finally ended up in some sort of research facility trying to get help from professionals. We had the computer, showing our friend in the alternate universe and we now had a baby with us too. The baby apparently was also in an alternate universe because what we had of the baby was plasticized. We would swing it around and it would stretch out and then come back to it’s original shape. I ended up waking up right in this part of the dream so our problem never was solved. Bummer!

The Newest Addition

Introducing the newest addition to my basement.... It's a pool table and an air hockey table (the table flips around). Huges thanks to Craig and Derrick that helped put it together (ok, they put it together....I tried to help). Craig and I got in a couple of games. I think it's time for a party!

Small Miracles

So, on the sleep front.... I went to see the doctor about a month ago as a follow up to the psychologist I saw. He was a bit concerned when I told him I constantly thought about taking whole bottles of pills at once in order to try and sleep. (As a side note, I'm truly grateful for the small fragment of sanity that always stayed with me....otherwise I would have followed through with taking one of those bottles.) Anyway, the doctor said that we really needed to make me sleep (NO DUH!) and so he put me on an anti-psychotic med (Zyprexa) that would hopefully calm my brain enough to make me sleep. Funny enough, my dreams have been more vivid than ever (I'm sorry, I have forgotten to write them down -- I will try to remember). I still feel like I don't sleep well and I still have a hard time getting up in the morning, BUT I do feel better during the day. I feel somewhat rested and able to handle my day. I do feel the slow down in my brain from the meds, but overall I'm feeling a bit better. I'm hoping to find a different, permanent solution (rather than drugs), but I'm truly grateful for what I have so far. I'll take it! I want to thank all those who have sent their prayers my way. I'm seeing small miracles along the way and I appreciate it!

My Kids

I thought I would share a few pictures of my boys. First off, this is Bully with his girlfriend Delilah. They get to play all the time and they just wrestle, wrestle, wrestle. I tried to get a good picture of them wrestling and this is what I ended up with:
When they wrestle in the kitchen, this is what I end up with:

Yes, those are my curtains on their way out of the doggy door. If have read my posts from a while back, you will know this is the second set so far. The first set were hanging from a much more flimsy curtain rod so when the dogs wrestled the curtains out the doggy door, they bent the rod quite a bit and ruined it. I splurged for a much more sturdy rod this time. It's holding out well so far. I didn't splurge on the curtains though, so we'll see how long they last (I didn't want to spend a lot of money if they were just going to get ruined!).

Next, this is my sweetheart Rocky. Heis getting quite old. He is mostly blind and deaf, but still loves to play ball. We just have to play in the hall with all of the doors closed so there is limited space for the ball to be in. Basically, I throw it and he runs and looks for it. It can take a little while. :)

Finally, this is Bully with his favorite -- stuffed toys that squeek! The first thing to go are the ears and other appendages. He always chews them off. We've had a lot of fun with this one!

Let it Snow!

So, we have had quite a bit of snow here the last week. I am truly blessed with fabulous neighbors who have shoveled or snow blowed my driveway and walks. Unfortunately, I have had to shovel my kitchen. Yes, my kitchen. :) This is one of the joys of having a doggy door. Overall I love having a doggy door because I don't have to worry about letting my boys out. They can come and go as they please. But snow finds it's way in....
I keep a towel by the door in hopes of soaking up the melted snow and the wet paws of the dogs coming in. I think it's mostly for my own benefit......the many puddles around the kitchen make me think it isn't working that well. Here is Bully after a romp in the snow:

Isn't he cute?! I laugh when he comes in all covered with snow. Here's my favorite picture (can't you see the grin on his face?):

Poor Rocky is having a hard time with the snow. I have had to shovel the stairs leading up to the deck because poor Rocky can't make it up the stairs. I've had to go downstairs and let him in that way quite a few times. Poor guy! I don't have any snow pictures of Rocky (at not from this year).

Bummer, Bully just came in with another cute face full of snow. I need another picture! Hey, I know I'm pathetic, but these are my kids after all.

Tagged.....

My cousin Jae tagged me in her blog. Here it goes....

The rules:

1. Post the rules
2. Answer the six "8" items
3. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving them a comment

8 Favorite TV Shows:

1. Life
2. Chuck
3. Smallville
4. Monk
5. Psych
6. The Mentalist
7. House
8. Eureka

8 Things I did yesterday
1. Went to lunch to celebrate the birthdays of a few friends.
2. Watched the end of the BYU/UofU game.
3. Did a bunch of laundry.
4. Did a little dusting (not nearly enough).
5. Started cleaning up my new laundry room.
6. Played on the computer
7. Played ball with my dogs.
8. Went to bed.

8 things I am looking forward to

1. The end of the semester!
2. Thanksgiving with good friends.
3. Enjoying my basement during the holidays (bring on the movies!).
4. Another trip to the beautiful Caribbean (I don't know when this one is going to happen).
5. My nap today (I hope).
6. Meeting the man of my dreams.
7. A completely clean house.
8. Ummmmm, I've run out of ideas.....

8 favorite restaurants

1. Macaroni Grill
2. Chili's
3. Red Robin
4. Red Butte Cafe
5. Texas Roadhouse
6. Mandarin
7. Iggy's
8. Pei Wei

8 Things on my wish list

1. A clean house
2. A cruise to somewhere beautiful.
3. A nice long trip to the white sands of the Caribbean.
4. A game table for my basement.
5. A new car.
6. A restful night's sleep.
7. My knight in shining armor.
8. A world without dust!

People I tag:

Anyone who would like to play along!

Sleepiness -- The Saga Continues

So, in my continued quest for restful sleep, I went to a psychologist. Why? Why not!?! So, we had a nice chat. I asked her about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (something my family doc suggested). When I asked her about it, she told me I wasn't "Cognitive" enough to try it at the moment. I'm too tired to think straight! Of course I already knew that. She wanted me to touch base with my family doc so I visited him last week. He gave me a new med to try. It is not specifically for sleep, but he hopes it will make me sleep. It is an anti-psychotic medication, given primarily to people with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The hope is that it will slow my mind down at night so I can stop having such crazy dreams all night and finally get some rest. Of course we really don't know the reason why I always feel exhausted, so we'll see. So far, my dreams have been more vivid than ever. In fact, while I'm asleep I have to direct my dreams a certain way in order to "sleep" -- or at least to make me think I'm sleeping. It has been very strange. I have noticed that it also slows my brain during the day. That isn't the best side effect. Teaching physics with an even slower than normal brain is a challenge!

I decided I need to try these meds for a while longer to see if it may work. I can only hope for some rest! I'm crashing too fast!

Story Time

My sweet neighbors stopped by to say "hi" tonight. We often sit and visit outside, when the weather is nice, but it's turning kind of cold lately. It was fun to have them visit.
Kate decided she wanted to read a book to Bullwinkle. It was very cute. He laid down as if he were paying very close attention. She would pull the pages out from under his paw and turn them. I couldn't resist the pictures!

Nice Compliment

Today, one of my students brought her husband to class. Apparently she has been telling him how much she is enjoying her physics class and he didn't believe that there was a good physics class out there. She kept trying to convince him that my class was a good one so I guess she finally brought him along to convince him. What a nice compliment! They came and talked to me after class and he said he really enjoyed it. Thanks! I appreciate the positive feedback. It's always nice to know I'm doing something well. And it was even on a day when I wasn't fully coherent!