Three-day weekends are the best. My friend Cara was visiting from Fort Collins yesterday. We started out the day by visiting the BodyWorlds 2 exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was intense, but fascinating nonetheless. When we got home, we decided to take our dogs for a walk through downtown Denver with the intention of cruising by the Real World loft. If you haven't heard, they JUST started filming this past week in Denver, about 14 blocks away from our place. We stopped for water and ended up deciding to head back home for dinner, just a few blocks short of the loft. It's probably for the best, since Koda was experiencing a bad hair day anyway.

When we got home, we ran across the street and got a few bottles of wine to go with our pasta dinner. We recently got "on demand" cable, which we are very thrilled about, so we took advantage of this by renting Steel Magnolias. For free. Of course it was the ultimate chick flick, but was a perfect way to end the evening. Cara's husband Justin got here around midnight last night after a concert in town with friends, so they crashed on our living room floor. We all slept in and we made marvelous breakfast burritos this morning and chatted over coffee and breakfast. Three cheers for homemade breakfast burritos.

They left for home around noon, and I spent the remainder of the day exercising my right to do nothing and loving it. Koda and I went for a run around 7 tonight, where we met 5 people. Yes, something about having dogs and babies makes strangers want to talk, right? People are very nice, but love to offer advice, such as "I think he's got to be part Saint Bernard" and "You should go to the dog park on 29th and Franklin" and "I am a stranger, but here- have some of my raspberry sparkling water then I'll drink from the same bottle after you- a dog- are done with it." Okay, so it's not all advice, per se, but people love to talk so the big city is slowly breaking me out of my shell. The best was the woman tonight who asked me if Koda gets along with politicians. Umm, excuse me, I said- did you just ask me if he likes politicians? "Yes, I was just wondering if your dog gets along with politicians," she asked. I told her that he hasn't really met any thus far, then realized that we really needed to be on our way because the dog was getting restless and doesn't typically like to bring politics into personal conversations. Ahem.

It's interesting, because you see a lot of city/apartment dogs here- beagle size and smaller. Chihuahas, shihtzus, pugs run rampant, so Koda is quite the anomaly.

Koda: one bad ass mother pupper

Here is Koda, clearly gloating over the fact that he's somehow managed to successfully steal several items of clothing today, sneaking them past me, out the back door and into the back yard.

We discovered in the midst of packing last weekend that he had stolen a pair of black socks and dug his first substantial hole in the back yard. I for one don't get the appeal of burying a pair of dirty boy socks, but to each his own, I say. Today it was my white socks with flowers, and he even managed to bite a fashionable hole in the heel of the sock. Thanks, dog!

Next it was a pair of white gloves. Due to the fact that Koda wouldn't drop the things, no matter how many times I used my deep "I'm fricking serious" voice- coupled with the fact that I was literally running in circles around the big bushy tree in our yard- I finally got the hose. The spray of water was gentle, but I found Koda's Achilles Heel- he doesn't like getting wet. He immediately ran and I recovered my white gloves, dirt on my face and all out of breath by the end of it all.

Here you see the aftermath- the bigger than life shit-eating grin on his face. Maybe you don't see it unless you live with him and have chronicled the wide array of emotions he sometimes goes through in only a series of hours, but it's there- trust me.

I went to my first concert with my aunt Lisa in 6th grade. It was Poison, and Brett Michaels was my crush du jour. It looks like they are reuniting for a 20th anniversary tour. I wonder if they'd still attempt the spandex pants thing? Hmmmm.

In other news, Brandon and I move into our new apartment on Saturday!

Here is a photo from the rooftop of our building. See the tallest building out there? That's the Wells Fargo building. The top was designed like this to look like an old fashioned cash register. Brandon works in this general vicinity. This is also in the vicinity of the city where the future Real World Denver house will be located. Sort of.



This is the court yard in the middle of the block- our apartment actually has a door leading out to this area. The court yard is gated, so we can safely bring our dog out here at night before bed time. In addition to time spent in the court yard, Koda has become my jogging partner so we plan on taking lots of mile-high runs this summertime.


This is the outside of our apartment building. The inside is your typical apartment, complete with white walls and white carpet (no hardwood floors- Koda REALLY wanted hardwood floors). In lieu of hard wood floors, we opted for the less expensive place that would mean more spending money for plays, ball games, microbrews and bribe money for the Real World Denver insiders.

I'm also pretty excited because along the bottom of this apartment development, there are shops that were specifically built in this complex to foster sort of a "village" atmosphere. There is a flower shop, hair salon, gourmet grilled cheese restaurant, coffee shop, dry cleaners, wine shop, and yoga and pilates studios all within this little neighborhood. The apartment complex has events each month like "learn to make sushi at home" where you get an opportunity to meet other people, so should be fun.




Meanwhile, I dream of trading in my car for a Honda Metropolitan, but my mom thinks it's a bad idea. I think I should get an orange helmet and live it up a little. Whether I get one or not will depend on your votes, America- should I get a scooter?

We're moving to Denver this Saturday! So much to do between now and then, but we've got a good start. We've been packing the past few days, and our dog gives us that "I know you're shuffling things around means you're leaving, damnit." look.

I never noticed how much "stuff" we shuffle around as we get ready every morning- shuffle my makeup in my makeup case, shuffle my clothes in my closet, shuffle my shoes out of our other closet. He quickly learned what this means, but now thinks that packing means we're leaving him in about 10 minutes.

Oh, that crazy dog and the things he makes me do...

I'm pretty sure I was just petting my vacuum cleaner saying, "It's okay... IT'S okaay..." in a soothing voice.

I'm so very happy! I just finished the last of my outstanding custom orders. A month ago, I decided that I was going to take a break from working on custom charms to focus on a number of things: finding more me time- to include such things as liesurely reading over coffee, taking relaxing bubble baths and doing girly things like painting my toenails red... getting ready for our pending move to Denver- including adjusting to a new job and finding my new favorite places... and finally, to help fill my creative well, which seems to have run dry, oh, a good 4 months ago. I think stepping back a bit has helped already. I will take this time normally spent on making things for others, and hopefully make some jewelry for the simple pleasure of doing so- maybe even creating some things just for me. If you know me, you know that I often wear the things that didn't make it through the Moonwater Quality Assurance Department. Maybe I can finally make some things using my favorite colors and images.

So my back hurts, and I didn't get the opportunity to watch a marathon 4-episodes of lost with my honey as I had hoped, but I feel- free. And it feels damn good! I think I just needed to let go of trying so hard to be more and do more and saying yes when I really wanted to say no.

In other news, Koda tried stealing the 12-pack of TP tonight. Apparently he doesn't have the same toilet paper hang-ups as me. Brandon had gone grocery shopping and left it on the floor, and the dog picked up the 12-pack in his mouth and attempted to escape through the 9" gap we had left open on our sliding glass door going outside to the back yard. He ran toward the door, realized that the 2-foot wide toilet paper bundle was not going to fit through, ran about 6 feet back into the kitchen, as though he thought he'd take a running start at the door. And it still didn't fit. Back 6 feet once again, ran at the door. Damn, not this time. He did this at least 11 times. I think he wanted to go bury the TP outside, as he's akin to do with his dog bones. Come to think of it, his toilet paper burying tendencies reminds me of the way I still hide TP under random groceries in my shopping cart when I'm at the grocery store. Hmm- perhaps we're really not so different, me and Koda, with our silly hang-ups.

Tom Cruise jumping the couch...

Oh, Tom Cruise. So very sorry to hear about your movie not doing as well as it probably should have this weekend. Hopefully I'm not the only one deliberately boycotting.

Frankly, I think you need to get back on whatever meds you were on before. Hoping this is the last we see of Mr. Cruise, blockbustermoviewise. Go away, please.

C is for cookie... that's good enough for me.

My sweetie baked a chocolate chip cookie last night. Yes, singular cookiness was had by all.

As you will note, the numerous cookies morphed into one gigantic cookie. So we shared. And it they were delicious.