Huxley and the reason puppies are worse than babies

So most of you know that we have been having a hard time with the neighbor below us who just moved in. If you didn't know that then you do now! She complained about our dogs barking all day while we were at work. They barked because we had them kenneled or sectioned off in the hallway. Schnauzers don't really do well in confined spaces. So to appease our neighbor we decided, Huxley is doing well with potty training, what could possibly go wrong? Cleaning up pee and poo isn't really that difficult on hardwood floors but chewing on our furniture isn't so nice. Especially when it's *as Jaime would say* Italian Leather Furniture... or as Jaime actually did say "Your dog owes me $12,000". Bummer.
Just so you know the dog didn't chew the leather, he chewed the wood around it which we are still deciding on. I've been sanding and staining back to look like normal, Jaime would rather I hire a wood-crafts-man to re-carve us some furniture. Since we hardly had enough money for groceries I think that the staining might have to work for us for a few years until I can get my own savings account.
Huxley had a doctor's appointment where he patiently got his nails clipped and a needle stuck in his butt. He's a very calm dog in the right circumstances. We explained to our vet what was going on, we can't kennel him because he barks so dad gum much but we can't leave him out because he chews on everything. She then spoke the wise words of wisdom that I am anxious to try... before you leave feed him one tablespoon of Baby Benedryl and put him in his crate in a different room than the other dog so they don't upset each other. Drug him!? Genius! We promptly went to the drug store, bought our benedryl and then got a crate for him. No more hallway for Huxley. Jaime told Huxley while we shopped that it's not that he's a bad dog, it's that he doesn't know any better.
The point, you may ask, of the title is this. Jaime and I both had to leave this evening to run errands or play Gears of War II.. I'll let you figure out who did what. I was going to be gone no more than 45 minutes. Jaime and I decided we should try out the crate! So we put a towel and an old T-shirt in there with some toys and bribed Huxley in. He didn't really have a problem with it. I then shut the door to the walk in closet, turned our TV on in the bedroom and then shut that door. Turned the TV on in the living room and said bye bye to Churchill. Insert grocery shopping. When I got home I didn't hear much over the TV. When I got to the bedroom I could hear his faint pitiful cry. Churchill was super anxious about that. The one thing that really alerted me was the smell of poo... very strong smell of poo.
Babies poo. Everyone poos! But babies wear diapers. And usually babies don't spray poo all over the inside of their crate. Babies also don't tear out of said crate when you open the door and run around your apartment with poo on their feet. But you know what, in a perfect world this would have happened on a night when our water actually worked. Too bad we had no water. I sat for the next hour on the couch with a sheet on it with a poopy dog while the bath tub filled up drip by drip. I also made some cookies and planted some ivy in planters on the porch but mostly I remember the dripping of the faucet and the smelly smelly puppy crying on the couch.
Gross.
Jaime cleaned out the crate because he is my savior and I took a picture of the poo bag just to prove how messy it was. And while I was writing this entire entry my wonderful husband was pacing the apartment saying "It smells like poo" only he used a different more special word. I quite agree.
No matter how innocent he looks it's all a lie.

Anniversary Fever!

So this past week my husband and I celebrated our second year anniversary, and our third year of being together. This is the longest I've ever been with someone but we aren't even close to beating that record for my husband. Eh.. 6 more years, what gives?
Happy Anniversary us!Only we didn't make out.. not really. We had tons of other stuff to do!!! We made up for it later though.. trust me. I don't need to give you the gooey details.
So two years ago we were married. It was a beautiful July day, the 21st, and it was the best decision of my life. Here are a few pictures to take you down memory lane! Our first stop would be the dressing room where we're getting ready. I like this one because it's all behind the scenes and what not, plus Laura and I look fetch.


This next one is just a demonstration of my modeling capabilities, just to show you how photogenic I am. Plus my parents are doting over me and I'm loving it. Aren't my parents the best?!

This next one is all about my brother and sister in law. I often forget how silly my brother can be. I've always looked up to him and it's easy to remember his accomplishments of Ivy League schools and killer jobs but I like this picture because he's looking a bit silly. Take that Harvard. Plus his wife Lacy always says that she doesn't take good pictures but in this one she looks absolutely gorgeous even though my brother was pushing her into me/catching her. This is one of my favorite pictures.This one is where I threw my bouquet with a bit too much force and practically demolished Chandra and Rachel. They were two of the crowd that definitely did not want to catch it. Sorry ladies, but this makes for an awfully great photo. We all made up in the end anyway :) And neither of them are married yet so.. just saying.


This is where we realized that we weren't officially married since we forgot to sign the marriage certificate. So I was trying to track down our pastor to say.. could we like.. meet up with you and do that whole marriage thing? Sorry about that.

I mean, our bad. We got things squared away after that. Then I had a whole bunch of Lasagna! Jaime likes to refer to this as our party after the party... later we had the party after the party after the party.. and then we went on our honeymoon.

I have a picture from around our anniversary and this is what my love looked like then. Quite the man. I'm happy to say that when I found this picture I got a bit tingly in the hiny if you will. Want to know what we did this year on our anniversay?

This is what we did on our anniversary. Not for it, but for a friend's birthday. It just happened to fall on our 2 year date. We crack ourselves up way too much. It really is wonderful.
Just for the record, I beat him in bowling that evening and he still owes me a back massage. Did you read that Jaime? I love you.. rub my back.

Rappas

I promised that I would update with a picture of the last Rappas meeting I went to. I was super proud of myself at this meeting because it was the first time I played and was pleased with my performance. It's been a long time since I've performed for people and walked away happy about it. Russell Williams also said he thought my piece was one of the best. Thanks Russell, I know you're just saying that but I'm so gullible I just might believe you. So here is a picture of all the people that performed. I wore my Dorothy-Red shoes and I was equally impressed with Walter, to my left in the photo who wore a really unique and nerdy outfit. I asked him to turn my pages for me but he said he didn't have his contacts in so he could hardly see at all and that he was terribly sorry. He's one of my favorites since he thinks its ok to walk around blind and in T-shirts with nerdy phrases on them while everyone else talks about their grand pianos. He's there for the fun of it, not to impress anyone. I should learn a lesson from him. Point is, whenever I go to the Rappas meetings I try to find a seat near him. Time before last he let me hold his music while he played so I could follow along, I liked that. Thanks Walter for being so genuine.
The woman on the left has been playing through Bach's Italian Concerto and I always admire how hard she tries. I don't think she is a very gifted performer but she played the third movement through without using the music which in my opinion is very difficult. She's been working on it for so long, I was pleased to hear the third movment, even if it was a bit boring. The man to her right almost always plays Bach and this time he played the Partita in G and boy did I love it. I thought it wasn't as exciting as it could have been but who doesn't like that opening movement? Nobody! The man in the middle, Mr. Nicholas, hosted the evening and played a rag, about a ghost I think, by a contemporary composer I had never heard of before, Bolcom. Mr. Nicholas also made the Sangria.. thank you. The Bolcom was one of my favorites.

Enough piano talk, we need to get on to other things! I think I'm going to make several entries today to catch up from Anniversary and Vacation!

Donuts

Yesterday was our Anniversary and not only did we work all day long we also went bowling - I won a back massage, and had an Anniversary dinner at the Waffle House, totally the best Anniversary yet! While I'm trying to get my life back together after this crazy week I'll post a short segment on donuts. Because I love donuts.
Where I work the piano tuners come in about every week depending on business. Big Mike and Little Mike. They are actually Father and Son-in-Law and are a heck of a good time to hang out with. For the past few months Mike (Big Mike) would bring food with him from Shipley's a local donut hang out. AKA Heaven. It was one of the first dates my husband and I went on, chocolate milk and donuts from Shipleys... *sigh*. Ok back to the story. So Mike has started bringing in food for us Sheet Music Department people. First it was just... we bought an extra sausage biscuit and a donut, you guys want it? Now it's being hand delivered with lines like "just so you know we still love you" while I know he was thinking... 'even though you sold my humidifier for half price'. (It was an honest mistake on my part and I think we worked things out.) Today I got into work early and was practicing on one of the 'big pianos' in the back when in walked Mike and Mike! Hand delivered chocolate glazed donuts and Bach go together really well in my opinion. Plus David, the guy I work with got his choice of Sausage or Ham this morning and when I opened my bag to get my donut out there was not one, but two! I literally said outloud "Holy Cow!" even though no one heard me.
Our local newspaper did a report on Mike so I snuck a picture of the donut giver onto my blog here:
Now because of this kind man we all look forward to the day the piano tuners are here. And to be honest it's not just the donuts. I actually find the sound of pianos being tuned rather cathartic. It's like taking something unruley and wacked out and making it straight, tuned, and peacefull which to me is a very relaxing thing to listen to. But I also like donuts. A lot.

This is why I shouldn't wait very long between posts!

So many things to share! I'm all backed up! For good reason though, I've had lots of things to do this week so I'll give you a few highlights :)
First off while we were watching Dance Your Ass Off a cockroach showed up on the far wall. I hate roaches of any kind, especially the kind that are inside my apartment. Because they skitter around so fast it's almost impossible for me to catch them, except that amazing time that I jammed one in the sink drain. I left that one for Jaime to help clean up ;)
So we're watching this horrible TV show and the roach shows up crawling horizontal across the wall! Oh no!! So I tell Jaime, please kill it, find a way. It's like I watch it all over again in slow motion. He reached for one of my flip flops that were near by and while he was standing up threw it all the way across the room and JACK POT! One hit and he got him. I was literally speechless. I've never seen that kind of hand eye coordination before. He obviously didn't get it from the hours of video games he plays each day, maybe it's just natural talent. HR, his dad, says he throws a good punch. Well, I say he also throws a good flip flop.
Naturally I made him reenact this feat of greatness and I got a great picture to show you of what I would like to visualize what he looked like from the front.. the roaches view if you will.And here for your viewing pleasure is the corner on the other side of the room that he threw my flip flop at. Now that I look at that picture of him.. he's looking hot. (We've been lifting!)
This picture not only shows the corner where the roach came from, our lovely leather furniture, but also my oldest puppy Churchill (he's keeping an eye out for another roach) Plus our defective box of Cheerios. Here's the culprit, he dared show his face again, or it was a cousin or something, but before my husband threw another flip flop I clicked my camera.

On to other things. Lately I've taken up gardening and found I must have quite the green thumb. Who knew!? I now have seven pots full of very green things. I've got some ivy, one isn't looking good but the other is flourishing. I also planted transplants of philodendron in two hanging planters and they are really coming to life, even making new baby philodendron for my viewing pleasure! I planted lavender because I love the way it smells and Jaime's mother gave me some tomato plants. Those are still babies so I can't really report on their progress yet. HOWEVER! My greatest feat yet has been to plant some potatoes that we had that sprouted rather green eyes. I figured I'll put them in water and see if something happens. Well something did happen. Then they got their own pot! And this picture below ladies and gentlemen will show you what happens when you plant potatoes.Note the pj's that I was sporting = sexy. Those dear readers are baby potatoes. And there are about three more that I can see sticking out of the dirt. So I'm guessing that there are more out there that I don't know about yet! Those potatoes were getting busy. Well I just tucked those babies back down into the ground until I can get a bigger pot and maybe just maybe I'll be my own self sustaining potato farm. Awesome.

Ok last update for now. Aldous Huxley got his first hair cut and is now initiated into full grown puppy-dom. We're very excited and he really does look precious. The groomer was super impressed too, saying that he was the calmest dog she's groomed and please bring him back all the time and while I'm at it here's my card. I was proud, Huxley you did me proud. So I'll leave you with two thoughts.
One, Jaime and my two year anniversary is this Tuesday and we are celebrating on Saturday. I can't say what I'm getting him because he reads this blog but I think he got me something to do with our bed, pillows? Mattress?! Probably not. Sheets?! A new comforter?! Who knows, all I know is that it has to be made of cotton and I'm not giving any clues as to what I'm getting him but it kicks ass.
Two. I thought you would like to see little Huxley, so here he is in all his hair cut splendor. He's learning to sit right now but wouldn't sit for the camera. We'll work on that part.

Piano cults and video games

This past Friday I went to a meeting with some fellow pianists. We're in a group called Rappas, but I'm not sure what that name means. My husband calls it the piano cult. I call it the elites. Because all we've played on so far have been Steinways and nothing against Steinway, I'm sure that they are a good piano company and I know they've been around since forever and they are super expensive and stuff but I just don't like them that much. So sue me. Whenever we get to the host's house or destination (Steinway store) the members are ooohhh ing and ahhhhh ing 'What kind do you have?' to which the host answers 'This is a Steinway L'. Well damn! A Steinway L? I mean.. my Yamaha U1 is pretty impressive and you know what I like the best about it? The keys actually press in all the way and it's what I would like to call 'responsive'. Ok so I have beef with Steinway. I get to host in September and you know where we're going to have it? Where I work. And where I work doesn't have any new Steinways. I'm going to show the Elite Rappas Piano Cult what it feels like to play on a Schimmel and you know what? They will probably all be like.. ehh this isn't that great. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Just don't think you'll impress me if you say you own a Steinway. I'll be like... so you spent 50 grand on some neato living room furniture? Cool.
On the other hand I got my nerve up to play for this wonderful group of people. I played the Allemande and Courante of Bach's French Suite No. 6 in E Major. It was pretty good and I think the people were alright impressed. Plus I got to drink two glasses of home made Sangria!

Jaime on the other hand got to go spend the evening with our college friends. They ate out at Ichiban and Jaime, being the wonderful amazing husband that he is, ordered me fried rice and brought it home to me. I ate that at work on Saturday. Yum!
After the Elitist Piano cult meeting I drove over to our friends house where everyone was congregated after the dinner and listened to them all tell those wonderful stories that you love to hear about the good old days. My husband and a friend named Keith and another friend, Austin, tell such funny stories. I sat in my husbands lap on a recliner and laughed and laughed. Honored the whole time to not only be with the most handsome man in the room but the funniest. He's like a god among our college friends, the man, the myth, the legend. I wanted to run home and make sweet hot love to him but we promptly fell asleep :) The happy kind of asleep where you wake up in the morning all wound up in each other's arms and legs all smiley faced and stuff. It was gooey and it was good.

Huxley is a peeing machine. He recently peed all over our leather ottoman. I cleaned it up don't you worry! But wow, it was like a liter of pee. I didn't know puppies had that much pee in them. Recently he's had like 12 different accidents including having to change the sheets twice. It's so weird. He's never peed on the bed before. I'm starting to think he has a problem.

I've been playing Oblivion again, after almost a year's break and I'm really happy about playing it . I'm always so focused on getting something done like housework that I never think I have time to play xBox but lately I've set aside the time. I missed it. But when those Orgs came running out at me in the hidden passageways I freaked out a little and the dogs got upset and Jaime laughed at me. I'm just a little bit sensitive. I don't take suspense well. But I do like to mess around near it.
I'll try to get pictures up of the Rappas evening, they will be posted soon online. Figured you would like an update before those finally showed up though :)

Red Beans and Rice

Today has marked a very important date in Huxley history. He is now too big to run and hide under our chairs, couches, and cedar chest. In his attempt to get away from Chuchill this morning I found Huxley's back end sticking out from the side of the cedar chest with the big dog just staring at it puzzled. I guess he does seem a little bit bigger to me. I got a great picture of them cuddling which they do from time to time.
I also made the mistake of trying to cook for my husband a traditional southern meal. (A mistake I often make at the expense of my humility) This time Jaime asked for 'Red Beans and Rice'. I was like.. please! That's so easy a monkey could do it. We have rice all the time and we both like black beans, so how hard is it to mix in the red beans? I even remembered without writing it down (a huge feet for me, just ask my husband) to buy a can of red beans at the store next time I went. When my husband came home from work he found this waiting on him.

Note the water splatters on my shirt, I was cooking hard. And I obviously missed the point of Red Beans and Rice. Apparently it isn't just rice and red beans. Who knew? According to a recipe you have to have junk like garlic and other veggies, and even chicken stock. Sheesh, these southern people really need to get things straight. Shrimp and Grits? It's not as simple as you think it sounds. Red Beans and Rice? Get a life. Well let me tell you that we did have red beans and rice, only it was just red beans and rice.. and some really nice asparagus that Jaime thought was "too salty!". Right before we ate I got a shot of this adorable family. It's a pity that their eyes look like little lasers.
In other news I not only did the dishes, one and a half loads of laundry, vacuumed but I also washed the hardwoods. Our apartment couldn't feel any cleaner, unless I changed the sheets on the bed. There is always something to clean. And for those of you who are curious, I had yogurt tonight instead of ice cream and I've got a little tupperware container ready to freeze over night. Frozen. Yogurt?! Woah.