Puppies, Puppies, Puppies!

On Feb 23rd, 2012 we became fosters for Stray Rescue of St. Louis! A few years ago John and I met Randy Grim, the founder of Stray Rescue, at a holiday party of St. Louis Blues player Barret Jackman and his wife Jenny (my husband and I went to highschool with her, yay P South). We got to know Randy over several shot-ski's and discovered what a fun, sweet man he is and SO passionate about rescuing stray dogs. Immediately, I wanted to join the cause and help however I could, but it wouldn't be until 2012 that we finally moved out of our tiny condo and into a home large enough that we could finally foster!

Ps this is a shot-ski if you aren't familiar (that's me in the middle shot-skiing like a champ)

Anywho, back to fostering, we decided we had the time and space to help so we applied to become fosters and just a week later we were taking home our first two puppies from Stray Rescue's Pine Street shelter. We were so nervous and excited. Two puppies at the same time?? Plus Bauer and our two kitties Poopie and Charlie? Could we actually do this? Through Stray Rescue's foster group page on Facebook I could see that many people have even more dogs/cats/kids at home and were fostering successfully. What a comfort! If they could do it, surely we could too!

Enter Pika and Bilby!

What a fun, stressful, happy, time-consuming, heart-warming adventure it has been! Me, John and Bauer fell in love with the puppies instantly and we knew right away how hard eventually letting them go would be. But darn it if it doesn't feel good helping a cause that we believe in! I can sum up the experience like this: lots of baby gates, puppy breath, potty breaks, and puppy kisses. We had so much fun with these two guys that I'm so surprised more people don't foster. A lot of people say "I could never do that because I would become too attached and would want to keep the dog". I can't disagree with that but truly caring means finding a loving home for the dog and making room to help out another dog in need. There were many tears shed after each puppy was dropped off at their new homes but there were smiles through the tears as well! Pika and Bilby are both in great homes now and I get updates all the time about how they are doing.  It turned out to be such a wonderful experience that I hope this is the beginning of a long relationship with Stray Rescue as a foster parent. 

Stray Rescue is currently overloaded with dogs and a spring explosion of puppies and in desperate need of new fosters. If you, or anyone you know, would be interested please get in touch.  And if fostering is not for you think about adopting!! So many wonderful dogs and puppies just waiting for the right family to come along and rescue them.

http://www.strayrescue.org/ 

Hope everyone is having an amazing spring!!

Love,

Tina

Girl's Night

Tonight I am meeting the girls at old Corner Pub to celebrate Jackie's birthday! I can't wait, seriously, it has been so long since I've been out. I'm trying to think of the last time I went out for dinner/drinks and the only thing I can come up with is EdgeWild when Alessandra was in town. But wasn't that back in January?? Gasp. So needless to say I've been looking forward to this ALLLL week. I am notorious for cancelling plans but not today. One of the big bonuses of going out tonight is that Corner is now walking distance from my house, woohooo. I am one of those people that is super paranoid about having even one cocktail and driving which is why I usually have John pick me up and drop me off for girls nights. So bonus for him, he gets the night off from driving duty and can play video games to his heart's content. Win-win for everyone.

Time to get real now. I've been nesting with John in a honeymooner's bliss for over a year and its time come out of our little bubble. I'm also very self-entertained and independent which also leads to hermit like behavior. All of this adds up to me neglecting my friendships. This is a huge no-no. Like Tom Haverford would say, "This is one of my Oh-no-no's". Somebody call the Friend Protective Services on me, I've been found negligent and incompetent. BUT like I said I'm ready to come out of my cocoon and rejoin society. My friends are always there for me and they deserve the same in return. I'm so lucky to have found such great friends throughout my life and I mean to hold onto them for as long as I'm alive.

Ok time to get my work finished so I can shower, dress, and be on time tonight. Another one of my efforts to be a better friend, showing up ON TIME.

Happy Birthday Jackie!! Can't wait to celebrate with you tonight! Will you be getting a turkey burger, no bun, veggies on the side with a glass of red wine? :)

Cheers!
Tina

Moving on Saturday!

Only a few more days until we move into our first HOUSE.  Ahhh I can't wait!  This is what I look like on a daily basis:

Even packing hasn't been the chore I thought it would be.  Its been kind of fun going through all of our things.  All the packing and reminiscing has brought on a bit of nostalgic sadness, however.  This is the first home we have shared together. We moved into our condo on October 8th, 2008 and, aside from a couple of bad neighbors, we have loved every minute of our time here. I remember the first day we moved in like it was yesterday. He had been living in a house with a couple roommates and I was living at home. No judging! Its was a transitional temporary sitch! Anywho, neither of us had any sort privacy.  When we moved in that first day it was like a sigh of relief. Our own space! Every room was ours and ours alone.  We were a couple of crazy kids in love and playing house.  I'm happy to say we are still a couple of crazy kids in love only this time playing house for real!  Below I've shared some pictures of our time here.  From our first Christmas tree to getting Bauer. 

The day we moved in.

Our first Xmas tree!

Adopting Charlie Kitten <3

More than a few cocktail nights...

Our family B.B. (Before Bauer)

Lots of Skip-bo!

Good times with "The Head".

Getting engaged....

.....and then getting married!

Finally having a nice set of dishes.

John becoming a cat lover :)

Lots of birthday celebrations.

Lots of holidays.

Valentine's day is my 3rd fave holiday, so it gets a lot of attention.

Me and the ladies....and our boom box. Ah life before an ipod/iphone dock!

Getting Bauer xo

Watching him get bigger......

and bigger....

and bigger!

Watching the Cards win the 2011 World Series!  ....from the comfort of our condo.

Naps!

More naps!

Playing in the fields behind our place.

Our daily Tina and Bauer time, exploring Wildwood.

I've been Queen of the Castle for almost 4 years and what a pleasure it has been. I'm looking forward to my next term of service in our new house :)





Yes our years here in our tiny 2 bed/2 bath condo in Wildwood have been amazing but its time start the next chapter of our lives.  Could it be? Is it possible? Are we actually growing up?  Hahaha!  We'll see....cross your fingers. 

Love,

Tina

ps stay tuned, next blog will about our new house. Yay, hearts and bunnies and cartwheels and glitter!







I need to vent.

I can't wait to get out of this *&$^%^% neighborhood!! Just ran into a woman that asked if it was our dog howling all day while we are at work. Um no lady, I work from home and my car is broken right now so I'm literally with him all day, every day.  There is a dog around here causing a ruckus but everyone wants to blame Bauer. I think its Big Black Dog Syndrome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-dog_bias.   Generally this involves big, black dogs being the last to be adopted at shelters but I think we are facing this prejudice at home.  No one wants to blame the beagle or the schnauzer, its always the big, scary looking black dog. BS!!!! The loudest our dog gets is when he is snoring, because he sleeps alllllll day.  Literally he only gets up for me to take him on walks and potty breaks otherwise he is snoring on the couch. I know how much engery puppies have so I make it my business everyday to tire him out on our run/walks for the purpose of keeping him low key when we are indoors. 

I have heard shouting, kids screaming, babies crying, people falling down, vacuuming at midnight, yelling about sporting events, dogs yapping all the time and it has never occured to me to complain to anyone. In the 4 yrs we have been here, we have abided by the rules. No running appliances after 9 pm and no starting them up before 9 am. No playing loud music. We are quiet and respectful tenants. We have looked the other way when other people made lots of noise, because you know what, when living in such close quarters you'll hear things. All of this in respect for our neighbors! The same neighbors that want to blame our dog for any dog noises in the neighborhood. Did they ever think of the huge white american bulldog? What about the siberian husky?? Or the crazy lady that has 5 little shit box dogs that never shut the f up? Yap yap yap all the time.  *****Or to the lady who questioned me today......how about the dog who lives directly beneath you whose owners are NEVER home and who only ever let their dog out to go to the bathroom then put him right back in his crate?! Gee I wonder who is making the noise? *****   We have heard Bauer bark only on a couple occasions and they are deep, low barks. He doesn't howl and he doesn't yap. I'm so over having 10 neighbors living above me, beneath me, and beside me. I'm ready to just have 3 immediate neighbors, one to the left of us, one to the right, and one behind us. We are moving in about a week and I am so excited!!! I hate packing but after this encounter with the idiot neighbor I'll have the whole house packed by the time John gets home from work today. 


Ok deep breath, I feel better. I'm not going to proof this so there will be a ton of grammatical errors I'm sure.  Stay tuned for my next blog, a happy one about our NEW HOUSE!!!!

Update!

Today I decided to update my profile for this blog. Originally it was about John and I planning our wedding but now that I'm an old married woman the blog's purpose has shifted. Currently it is about our life together and my random thoughts. As always, I will strive to be as honest as possible. I think people try so had to put out a perfect image of their home, family, life etc. that in the end they do themselves an injustice. I think the more honest we are with ourselves the more honest we can be with each other. And the best thing I've learned from John is that being truly, openly honest is the most freeing feeling in the world. No one's life is perfect. Everybody fails at some point. People make mistakes. Its life. Don't worry about everything working out the way you think it should or they way other people say it should. Sometimes the people who seem to have it all really have nothing. Like a model home. Yes, new and beautiful, but somehow cold and hollow.  So, to put my money where my mouth is, I'll be honest. No, my life isn't perfect. Far from it. We struggle. Life at times seems to be an endless race with hurdles.  But you know what, it certainly keeps things interesting. And each time we finish a leg of the race we get to celebrate.

The Unbearable Closeness of Condo Living

We have a circus variety of neighbors living next to, across from, underneath and above us. Never a dull moment around here. Below I've listed a few stand-outs of my cast.

The fat man we call Leather Chest. In the summer he spends his days at our pool. He sits in his lounge chair, his stomach getting darker from the hours in the sun and bigger from the beer he puts away one after the other as if in a trance, all the while staring and ogling all of the women. He doesn't have a type, he stares at all of them. Younger girls in skimpy bikinis, old ladies in skirted bottoms. To him it doesn't matter. The pool is his buffet of women to visually feast upon, some dishes better than others but all worth the taste of a stolen glance. There is also the fat man in the next building over who cooks bacon outside on his deck. He does this shirtless and everytime I see him I wonder if his big stomach gets burned by the sizzling grease. It took me awhile to realize this is the same man as Leather Chest. 

There is the lady across the common ground from us. She occasionally has crazy outbursts where she kicks and punches the walls of her townhouse while shouting "rot and burn in hell". She rarely leaves her home. She chain smokes outside all day, everyday. In the winter she sits out there with a blanket around her shoulders like an American Indian with a peace pipe. I think to myself at least she's not smoking inside.

The nice, older woman across the hall from us. I walked John out to his car one morning and upon returning realized I was locked out. She invited me inside her home and offered me coffee and her cell phone. She works from home and has a little tray table and chair set up in her living room facing the tv where she sits to do her work from her lap top. Her place is a mirror image of our place. Her life looks a lot like mine. Drinking coffee in the morning, watching the news, working from home. She even has a large persian cat. The only differnce is I have John, Bauer, and TWO persian cats.

There is the man who lives above us that is a real life Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. One day he is nice as can be, making pleasant small talk then the next day ranting and raving and yelling things we can't even understand through his deck floor down to ours. I believe he is an alcoholic and I think this is why we see such conflicting personalities from him.  Often times we hear him fall down. One time he fell on the stairs going up to his place and knocked out part of the railing. John hates him. I feel sorry for him. He seems very sad and lonely. My dad always taught me that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so I tell John we should kill him with kindness. John thinks my kindness is wasted on him. He might be right.

Good neighbors, bad neighbors, either way I can't wait to move. John and I are counting down the days until we can move out and into an actual house. Our owns walls, ceilings, and floors. Ahhhh such bliss. Bauer is getting bigger every day and needs more room to play. We are planning on starting a family soon and god willing we will need more room for that as well. Life is good, better in fact than this time last year when I was heartbroken from my company closing. Change is always scary at first but in the end you look back and see it was for the best. Sometimes you just need the distance of a whole year before you can see things clearly.


Ps Today is 11/11/11. Cross your fingers, hold your breath, and make a wish.

Love,
Tina

Blood, Sweat & Tears

  Yep, that pretty much sums up the summer so far.  The blood from John when he, against my warnings, decided to jump off the dock at Innsbrook into very shallow, rock infested water.  He scraped up his back pretty bad.  Luckily he had about a six pack's worth of beer in him so the pain was minimal :/  More blood might be spilled if John keeps it up with his creepy monkey.  He's taken to randomly putting it in places to scare me.  Wow this sounds really bad.  This morning I wake up and open my eyes and the monkey is staring at me.  John was very pleased with himself.  Still not sounding any better.  Refer to the Drennen Family Weekend album on my facebook page to see the monkey.  That damn thing ended up in more pictures than I did.  And scene.

  The sweat portion is obvious as we have had a never-ending heat wave upon us, which honestly I rather enjoy.  It makes me feel like I live in some tropical paradise.  I like to pretend there is a beach nearby but like most locals of tropical cities I never get to see the good stuff.  Too busy surviving day to day life to get to the lush beaches that all the spoiled tourists overcrowd.
 
  And lastly the tears.  Shamefully, I admit I've shed a couple this summer.  The frustrated kind.  Two words: Potty.  Training.  No, I don't have a toddler that I'm gently introducing to the notion of using a toilet.  I have a puppy that I am using guerrilla war tactics against to potty train.  Does anyone else think of Captain Ron when they hear the word guerrilla?  "You said GOR not GUER, there is a very big difference!"  Anywho, recognizing him as the enemy was difficult as he does not wear a uniform but instead an adorable costume meant to trick us into thinking he's innocent.

Know thy enemy.

 

 

   Leading the charge with Cesar Millan and the Monks of New Skete and armed with plenty of paper towels and disinfectant, I finally emerged victorious.  Actually I'm being a bit over dramatic.  Shocker.  Aside from that one day where I could swear he was doing it on purpose, its been a pretty easy process.  From the day I brought him home he has always been very good about letting us know when he needs to go out.  Any accidents that happened were our fault for not listening to him.  So in reality, he trained us.

  This 30 lb. evil genius is named Bauer.  He is a black lab/english mastiff mix and he will be three months old tomorrow.  He learned to sit in less than 5 minutes at six and half weeks old.  When he grasped that so quickly we began teaching him other things.  He can now sit, stay, come, lay down, roll over, shake and hi-five.  We are very impressed.  Clearly I'm bragging right now.  To be honest, he generally won't do these tricks unless treats are involved.  We are working on weaning him off the treat dependency.  Although I'd sure want a treat if someone asked me lay down and roll over.  Hahaaa.  Too much? 

So yes, the summer is chugging along and I couldn't be any happier.  John and I have been married for 9 months now and we're about to celebrate our six year anniversary.  I really can't believe I've been with this guy for SIX YEARS.  I know to some folks that's just a blink of an eye, but to me it means everything.  We both have the same outlook on life, albeit mine through rosier colored glasses, that we should live in the moment and have as much fun as possible every day.  And that's just what we've been doing.

Tah tah for now,
Tina

ps. I'm getting back into the soap making business, stay tuned for upcoming posts about my progress!